STS Systems Thinking Skills (UMD-STS)

This is a key (card swipe) we give to incoming STS students that lists the systems thinking skills we hope they will embrace while part of the STS College Park Scholars program and beyond. These skills embody an action-oriented mindset for applying STS concepts. In conjuction with learning ethnographic data collection skills, we want students to feel they have the agency to influence the trajectory of science and technology through human-centered social science research. The list is also an interpretation of technical STS concepts that are easily digestible for 1st year undergraduate STEM students (our program tends to have a select group of engineering and computer science students with a scattering of other majors). It helps us bypass the sometimes unwieldy (especially for those not in the field or not predisposed to embrace the field) jargon that can act as a barrier to deeper learning centered on social experiences with science and technology.