ENED3040/DAAP3040: Sticky Innovation
Solving the Problem of the Bees
Description
While humans are reliant on bees for pollinating essential food crops the worldwide emergence of colony collapse disorder threatens the vitality of the honeybee population. In this course, students will learn multiple approaches to inquiry to consider this “wicked problem” of contemporary times. This course incorporates documentary film, fiction, arts based inquiry, scientific research, and multiple modes of reflection to design creative solutions to complex problems. The course will seek to enhance interdisciplinary collaboration, foster discussion and investigate the links that connect artistic and scientific disciplines. Integrating engineering and art, students will gain experience in a variety of modes of inquiry that will develop creative research approaches, problem solving skills and innovative habits of the mind.
In the spring 2023 offering, a project and team will be selected to represent UC at the International Biodesign Challenge in New York in the Summer of 2023. That team will have the opportunity to further develop their project and present at the Parsons School of Design and take part in the Biodesign Challenge Summit.
Class Location and Transportation
The class will meet at the Digital Futures building. Digital Futures will be serviced by a direct UC shuttle. The shuttle will run a direct route between Digital Futures/1819 Innovation Hub and the roundabout near Lindner College of Business. The total loop time will be ~10 minutes. This will help students get to and from Digital Futures safely and efficiently.
From the Biodesign Challenge website:
Our book is a deep dive into the perspectives shaping biodesign. Thank you to all of our supporters who have already purchased a book and helped to successfully fund our Kickstarter Campaign.
Selected from hundreds of artworks and designs from the BDC competition, our first book is a compilation of projects and ideas that are influencing the emerging field of biodesign. In their own words, pioneers and BDC alumni explore the future of biodesign and its role in shaping people’s identities, cultures, and relationships with the living environment.
Beyond being a primer, the book is a celebration of the first five years of BDC and it’s a deep dive into the minds behind biodesign.
This text includes an essay written by instructors for this course: What Biodesign Means to Us.
Instructors
Dr. Whitney Gaskins, Ph.D.
Assistant Dean of Inclusive Excellence and Community Engagement, CEAS
Founder, Gaskins Foundation
Her foundation recently launched the Cincinnati STEMulates year round K-12 program, which is a free of charge program that will introduce more students to math and science.
Nandita Sheth
Adjunct Instructor, DAAP
Strange Tools Research Lab, UC Digital Futures Program
Nandita has worked as an architect, planner, educator, and researcher. She is currently a doctoral student with the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts (IDSVA).
Ultimately, I feel as though this course was a culmination of all of the other honors seminars I have taken in my time at the University of Cincinnati. This course combined collaborative design similar to what I did in my “Inquiry to Innovation: The Cincinnati Zoo Challenge” course with the complicated nature of tackling “Wicked Problems” as I learned about in my “Environmental Futures” seminar. While these courses have made me both more aware of the issues that we face as a global society and aware of the up-hill battle for solutions to these issues, they have also empowered me to look at these problems in a way that is productive.
Bradley Davidson