Emily York and Shannon N. Conley, "STS Futures Lab in the Classroom", contributed by Emily York and Shannon N. Conley, STS Infrastructures, Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography, last modified 13 August 2019, accessed 26 April 2024. https://stsinfrastructures.org/content/sts-futures-lab-classroom
Critical Commentary
In addition to undergraduate student members, the STS Futures Lab has created an ethical reasoning module for one of the required undergraduate social contexts classes in the Integrated Science and Technology B.S. program at James Madison University.
In small groups, students conduct research on a technology area. They conduct scenario analysis, and then create a design fiction based on one of the scenarios that emerged in their scenario analysis. They are asked to select a scenario and to create a design fiction that is neither utopian or dystopian. Their design fiction juxtaposes 2D and 3D elements across scales, and is supposed to help start a conversation with their peers about the social and ethical dimensions of their plausible future scenario.