In Fall Semester 2019 Sean Ferguson and Sharon Ku led a course for undergraduate engineering 4th year students combining:
a school mandated research project,
Contemplative, mindfullness experiences
Community engagement with local neighbors in Charlottesville
Funded partnership with SmartCville
Global exchange of ideas for half the students with Tsinghua University engineering students
Introduction to STS, research methods, and writing a research paper
Introduction to community engagement via a one credit UNST course
These Blueprints were one of the final outputs where students were encouraged to document how they conceived what a "Smart Charlottesville" might look like. They proposed the original ideas, searched for information on the subject, conducted interviews and outreach with area experts and residents, and were given feedback by local leadership. The intention was to refine their understanding of socio-technical relationships and cultural variability of how cities and their people live so as to think deeper about urban and rural living before proposing technological solutions.
Sean M. Ferguson, 30 November 2019, "Blueprint Smart Energy Fall 2019 Smart City Class", contributed by Sean M. Ferguson, STS Infrastructures, Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography, last modified 13 May 2022, accessed 24 April 2024. https://stsinfrastructures.org/content/blueprint-smart-energy-fall-2019-smart-city-class
Critical Commentary
In Fall Semester 2019 Sean Ferguson and Sharon Ku led a course for undergraduate engineering 4th year students combining:
These Blueprints were one of the final outputs where students were encouraged to document how they conceived what a "Smart Charlottesville" might look like. They proposed the original ideas, searched for information on the subject, conducted interviews and outreach with area experts and residents, and were given feedback by local leadership. The intention was to refine their understanding of socio-technical relationships and cultural variability of how cities and their people live so as to think deeper about urban and rural living before proposing technological solutions.