Chicago Architecture Foundation (CAF) has officially launched the redesigned DiscoverDesign.org, an award-winning, online community of students, educators, and mentors coming together to design solutions for real-world challenges. DiscoverDesign empowers a participatory community of designers to share ideas and receive feedback through professional mentoring and the design process. DiscoverDesign also serves as the digital space which hosts CAF’s annual National DiscoverDesign Competition (Registration Now Open), a nationwide ideas competition which challenges high-school participants to think outside the box and use the design process to create solutions to a national design problem. Now in its fourth year, more than 1,000 students from around the country have participated in the competition to-date. The 2016 Challenge asks students to address the lack of affordable housing across the country; a problem that architects, urban planners and designers are working to solve through data sets regarding location, population, average income and other information.
The deadline for competition submissions is December 7; finalists and winners will be announced December 16, 2016. Visit discoverdesign.org for more information.
Educators in formal and out-of-school settings can utilize DiscoverDesign in their classrooms to teach design thinking and problem solving through design challenges, engaging students in an online space. The platform also connects students with volunteer mentors and design professionals who provide feedback and help motivate and direct teens through comments and discussion around their projects. With this new version, students can create projects to be shared with the public and gathered into an online portfolio of work. This is particularly valuable for students pursuing a higher education in the fields of architecture, engineering and design. Badges are earned and educators can now track student progress, modify existing challenges or even create new ones for their classrooms.
With DiscoverDesign.org, CAF fulfills a need within the education landscape; the practice of teaching what the National Education Association (NEA) identifies as the “Four Cs”: Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration and Creativity. These skill are acquired when schools bring 21st century learning practices into classrooms, encouraging technological literacy, peer interaction and conceptualization of real-world challenges. Because many high schools have not incorporated modern, flexible learning programs into their curricula, it is particularly important that students and teachers have other resources that they can easily integrate into existing teaching practices. Thus, DiscoverDesign was created to offer a dynamic platform that brings teens from all over the globe together to share design ideas and inspirations, and learn from expert professionals in their fields of interest.
“This national design competition gives teens the rare opportunity to think about the real design issues impacting communities around the country, and compete with their peers on a national level to generate sophisticated and forward-thinking solutions,” said Gabe Lyon. “We have seen many of these teens go on to pursue higher education in the fields of architecture, engineering and design; we’re honored to work with the next generation of professionals and give them the tools they need to succeed.”
Support for DiscoverDesign.org was generously provided by Hive, Mozilla, Chicago City of Learning (CCOL), Chicago Public Schools (CPS), Digital Youth Network, and Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).
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Edgar "Edge" Quintanilla, Manager of DiscoverDesign.org
Chicago Architecture Foundation
224 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago 60604
312.561.2156 | architecture.org
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