This seminar is an introduction to the usage and impacts of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on urban planning, the urban environment and communities. Students will explore how social relationships, our sense of community, the urban infrastructure, and planning practice have been affected by technological change. Literature reviews, guest speakers, and web surfing will provide examples and issues that are debated in class and homework exercises. We will examine metropolitan information infrastructures, urban modeling and visualization, e-government, collaborative planning, and cyber communities.
Students will attend a regular Tuesday seminar and occasional seminars of invited speakers during lunchtime on Fridays or Mondays.
During the past two decades, ICTs have become so pervasive and disruptive that their impact on urban planning and social relationships has begun to reach far beyond their immediate use as efficient bookkeeping and automation tools. This seminar will examine ICT impacts on our sense of community, urban planning practice, the meaning of ‘place’, and the nature of metropolitan governance. In each of the four areas, we will utilize readings, class discussion, guest lectures, and homework exercises to identify and critique key trends, relevant theories, and promising directions for research and professional practice.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Wastewater treatment protects ecosystems from pollution, including dangerous heavy metal contaminants. Nitrogen and phosphorus can be removed from wastewater by denitrifying phosphorus removal sludge (DPRS). This artificial ecosystem contains many different microbes active in anaerobic, anoxic, and aerobic processes. However, heavy metal pollution can stop DPRS from reaching its full potential. So researchers examined DPRS microbiomes in response to Cr(VI), Ni(II), and Cd(II) contamination. Using metaproteomics, they found that different microbial groups adopted different resistance mechanisms. Nitrospira improved its oxygen utilization, and Nitrosomonas produced more enzymes under heavy metal stress. Phosphorus-accumulating bacteria also produced polyphosphate, which could support community-wide detoxification, and showed a variety of other resistance responses, illuminating different microbial responses to pollutants and how diversity within a community keeps it healthy..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This course is designed for students seeking a fundamental understanding of Japanese history, politics, culture, and the economy. “Raw Fish 101” (as it is often labeled) combines lectures, seminar discussion, small-team case studies, and Web page construction exercises, all designed to shed light on contemporary Japan.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Animals and plants have close relationships with the bacteria on their surfaces and macroalgae — like kelp — are no different. The spatial structure of these microbial communities can impact how they interact with their neighbors, host, and environment. A recent study used spectral imaging to characterize the spatial structure of the bacteria on _Nereocystis luetkeana_. The kelp hosted a dense microbial biofilm that consisted of closely associated, but diverse, microbial taxa. For example, Gammaproteobacteria were found close to the kelp surface, and filamentous Bacteroidetes and Alphaproteobacteria were concentrated near the biofilm-seawater interface. Bacterial density also varied along the length of the kelp blades with density increasing from new tissue at the base to older tissue at the blade tips. Between kelp populations, declining populations hosted fewer microbial cells than kelp from a stable population. This study characterized the dense, spatially differentiated community on _N..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This course explores the history of the ideal of personal freedom with an eye towards contemporary debates over the pros and cons of the regulatory state. The first part of the course surveys the sociological and theological sources of the concepts of freedom and civil society, and introduces liberty’s leading relatives or competitors: property, equality, community, and republicanism. The second part consists of a series of case studies in the rise of modern liberty and libertarianism: the abolition of slavery, the struggle for religious freedom, and the twentieth-century American civil liberties movement. In the last part of the course, we take up debates over the role of libertarianism vs. the regulatory state in a variety of contexts: counter-terrorism, health care, the financial markets, and the Internet.

Access historic documents related to literature and poetry including selected Walt Whitman notebooks, digitized rare books, and presentations on a variety of literary figures ranging from Anne Bradstreet and Phillis Wheatley to Edgar Allan Poe and Ernest Hemingway.

This article describes how schools can involve local organizations in a festival or informal learning event.

Survey of Indian civilization from 2500 BC to present-day. Traces major political events as well as economic, social, ecological, and cultural developments. Primary and secondary readings enhance understanding of this unique civilization, and shape and improve understanding in analyzing and interpreting historical data. Examines major thematic debates in Indian history through class discussion.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Global urbanization is driving a flood of plastic pollution, and we desperately need ways to break these plastics down. And plastic-eating insects may be able to help. Such insects leverage their gut microbes to degrade plastic polymers, but little is known about how insects acquired this ability. To learn more, researchers examined the mealworm gut microbiome’s response to different diets. The bonds in synthetic plastic polymers can resemble those in natural polymers. Polystyrene, for example, has bonds like lignin, a polymer found in all vascular plants. So, the researchers fed mealworms polystyrene or corn straw, which is high in lignin. Neither experimental diet had a negative effect on the mealworms’ survival compared to a normal cabbage diet. Both polymer-heavy diets led to similar gut microbial community structures, metabolic pathways, and enzymatic profiles..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This course examines how a variety of cultural traditions propose answers to the question of how to live a meaningful life. It considers the meaning of life, not as a philosophical abstraction, but as a question that individuals grapple with in their daily lives, facing difficult decisions between meeting and defying cultural expectations. The course also provides tools for thinking about moral decisions as social and historical practices, and permits students to compare and contextualize the ways people in different times and places approach fundamental ethical concerns.

As students learn about the creation of biodomes, they are introduced to the steps of the engineering design process, including guidelines for brainstorming. Students learn how engineers are involved in the design and construction of biodomes and use brainstorming to come up with ideas for possible biodome designs. This lesson is part of a series of six lessons in which students use their growing understanding of various environments and the engineering design process, to design and create their own model biodome ecosystems.

Music, Heritage, and Community is about the use of music, presentations, and XR tools to support anti-racist teaching and to engage the community. This resource features interviews with professional musical artists who work with The Rhapsody Project, a Seattle-based community organization, and it also includes interviews with a Northwest Virtual Reality Specialist about the use of of virtual reality (VR) to teach local Black history. A variety of tools, including non-digital organic tools, online conferencing tools, and extended reality (XR) can further support teaching practices to decolonizing classrooms and be used to build community.

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)* call for students to use the practices, concepts and content of science and engineering to understand phenomena and solve problems that are relevant to their lives. Starting from a student’s own experiences and community makes the science meaningful and increases engagement while helping students understand how global issues like climate change are present and addressable in their lives. In this series we examine how you can use the new science standards and your community to understand and address real world environmental problems and explore together how to integrate NGSS into your district’s classroom science units.Mapping neighborhood assets, opportunities, and problems can engage students more deeply in science and engineering. In this workshop you’ll learn how system models, looking for patterns, and observing change over time can help students investigate and map their community. Local ecosystems, water flow, and community assets are some of many possible areas for your mapping efforts. By the end of this workshop you’ll have strategies to use in mapping your community and ideas for how you can use the information gathered.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"The second most common cause of cancer-related death is colorectal cancer, and even after surgical treatment, this disease has a high rate of recurrence. While the gut microbial community, or microbiota, is thought to play a role in colorectal cancer progression, it has largely not been explored as a prognostic tool on a whole microbial community level. To close this gap, researchers recently evaluated the pre-surgery gut microbiota of over 300 patients with colorectal cancer. They found that high levels of Prevotella bacteria were associated with lower risks of colorectal cancer progression and death. While increased risk was associated with other bacteria like an Alistipes species, Pyramidobacter piscolens, Dialister invisus, and Fusobacterium nucleatum. A model using five potentially prognostic bacteria was able to accurately predict colorectal cancer progression and outperformed widely accepted clinical biomarkers like lymphatic invasion..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Class website: The Once & Future City
What is a city? What shapes it? How does its history influence future development? How do physical form and institutions vary from city to city and how are these differences significant? How are cities changing and what is their future? This course will explore these and other questions, with emphasis upon twentieth-century American cities. A major focus will be on the physical form of cities—from downtown and inner-city to suburb and edge city—and the processes that shape them.
These questions and more are explored through lectures, readings, workshops, field trips, and analysis of particular places, with the city itself as a primary text. In light of the 2016 centennial of MIT’s move from Boston to Cambridge, the 2015 iteration of the course focused on MIT’s original campus in Boston’s Back Bay, and the university’s current neighborhood in Cambridge. Short field assignments, culminating in a final project, will provide students opportunities to use, develop, and refine new skills in “reading” the city.

Class website: The Once & Future City
What is a city? What shapes it? How does its history influence future development? How do physical form and institutions vary from city to city and how are these differences significant? How are cities changing and what is their future? This course will explore these and other questions, with emphasis upon twentieth-century American cities. A major focus will be on the physical form of cities—from downtown and inner-city to suburb and edge city—and the processes that shape them.
These questions and more are explored through lectures, readings, workshops, field trips, and analysis of particular places, with the city itself as a primary text. In light of the 2016 centennial of MIT’s move from Boston to Cambridge, the 2015 iteration of the course focused on MIT’s original campus in Boston’s Back Bay, and the university’s current neighborhood in Cambridge. Short field assignments, culminating in a final project, will provide students opportunities to use, develop, and refine new skills in “reading” the city.

Students create alphabet books, which are used as an integrated assessment with science, health, social studies, and any other content area. This lesson plans looks at the theme of community.

This is a 2-part assignment designed to help students to explore how culture can impact one's view of mental health and mental disorders. In part 1, students are invited to explore how culture impacts mental health, for example how mental disorders are regarding in different communities and the potential cultural stigmas regarding mental disorders and treatments. Using their own identified culture, students will explore how mental health & well-being are approached by that culture. In part 2, students will focus on a particular psychological disorder and how that disorder is perceived in their chosen culture. Students will provide a short write-up/recording of their findings and also create an infographic or visual targeted toward members of their culture.Students are encouraged to be creative in designing their visual and are also encouraged to create a multilingual visual, if appropriate.

This is a 2-part assignment designed to help students to explore how culture can impact one's view of mental health and mental disorders. In part 1, students are invited to explore how culture impacts mental health, for example how mental disorders are regarding in different communities and the potential cultural stigmas regarding mental disorders and treatments. Using their own identified culture, students will explore how mental health & well-being are approached by that culture. In part 2, students will focus on a particular psychological disorder and how that disorder is perceived in their chosen culture. Students will provide a short write-up/recording of their findings and also create an infographic or visual targeted toward members of their culture.Students are encouraged to be creative in designing their visual and are also encouraged to create a multilingual visual, if appropriate.

This is a Physical Education resource to be used to expand Physical Education programs to the larger community. This resource includes a downloadable document that teachers may edit and revise to match the needs of their students and program. The calendar template can be used for different months and is met to be a resource for students and their families.