CEGU
Source: https://cegu.uchicago.edu/undergraduate-studies/experiential-learning/ Parent: https://cegu.uchicago.edu/undergraduate-studies/
Sabina Shaikh and study abroad students with Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris.
Experiential Learning
Through coursework, programming, thesis research, and community projects, CEGU emphasizes experiential learning. Experiential learning opportunities include course field trips and site visits, hands-on and practical student assessments and research, as well as quarter-long engagements with a site or case study such as the Calumet Quarter (in collaboration with Chicago Studies) or intensive study during September Term. These experiences are designed to foster creative vision and method-based applications outside the classroom, often involving community partners and specific forms of community engagement. Experiential learning offers innovative ways for students to learn and develop critical skills through sites of practical, experiential engagement.
InPLACE Lab
Innovative Pedagogies for Learning with Art, Culture and Ecology (InPLACE) incubates high-quality, interdisciplinary, and community-aware research and teaching through place-based practices at the intersections of ecology and the environmental humanities and social sciences. Housed at UChicago’s Warren Woods Ecological Field Station, InPLACE has the following main objectives:
- to create a model for pedagogically rich, hands-on experiential training in field-based and faculty- led environmental humanities, social science, and ecological science research;
- to contribute to regional ecological knowledge and to deepen individual and collective “sense of place” and commitment to local environmental problem-solving through innovative, interdisciplinary methods;
- to provide students, faculty, and staff with meaningful professional mentorship by experts in related fields through community partnerships, workshops, and lectures.
Object- and Place-Based Teaching and Learning Exploratory Teaching Group
The Object- and Place-based Teaching and Learning Exploratory Teaching Group (OPTL ETG) grew out of a previous working group to foster dialogue about the valuable common ground between object- and place-based learning, together with the opportunities afforded when we think pragmatically and theoretically across experiential methodologies
Object- and place-based teaching and learning (OPTL) centers objects and places as the main subjects of study, and aims to derive and build upon unique knowledge from the environment and the objects within it. Where possible, OPTL puts students in direct experience with physical objects and/or sites, to emphasize situated and embodied thinking, problem-solving, and interaction. OPTL can complement theoretical and textual study in a number of academic areas, including interdisciplinary collaborations. OPTL has potential to create memorable interactions with course content through engaging multiple senses and a variety of learning styles. OPTL methods are versatile and scalable; they can form the core of a quarter-long course or advance learning objectives within the parameters of a single lesson plan.
Warren Woods Ecological Field Station Interpretative Master Plan
Led by InPLACE Lab co-PIs, Jessica Landau and Emily Bretl, students working with InPLACE Lab, will develop a new interpretative master for the Field Station, including plans to develop interpretative signage, future curricula, and foster research on site. This will help make the Field Station more accessible to the local community but also incorporate plans for UChicago faculty and students to engage with the Field Station in increasing capacities. Better and more integrated interpretation, both digitally and onsite, will help instructors connect the Field Station to their coursework and learning objectives, inspire continued undergraduate research at the Field Station about major interpretative frameworks, and make the Field Station more legible to the broader community.
Community Research and Ecological Stewardship Summer Internship
The Community Research and Ecological Stewardship Internship (CRESSI) was developed to support the University of Chicago undergraduate students ‘ personal and professional development through field-based research, community engagement, ecological experiences, and place-based learning. The internship is based at the Warren Woods Ecological Field Station, where interns live for nine weeks in on-site cabins. They conduct ecological surveys, participate in weekly professional development workshops, and conduct original research to support local community partners. Each intern also designs and implements a personal-professional project (PPP) that allows them to explore personal passions, deepen pertise in an ecological/environmental topic, and contribute to the Field Station’s natural and social ecology. The internship aims to provide students with an immersive, hands-on experience the strengthens their committment to environmental studies while deepening their sense of place. The summer internship experience is led by Emily Bretl, InPLACE co-PI and Managing Director of Warren Woods Ecological Field Station. It is supported by weekly expert visitors and guest lectures from around the Great Lakes Region and across the US, who share knowledge, skills, and love of place, community, and environmental learning with interns.
Community Project Capstone Program (CP2)
The Community Project Capstone Program (CP2) track advances students’ direct participation in the work of Chicago area organizations whose missions align with themes of the CEGU major in the fields of conservation, urban affairs and environmental justice. Students will design, plan and develop projects and learn how to manage them through an iterative and reflexive process of collaborative learning-by-doing. Project teams work independently with close faculty guidance and organization mentorship on projects of urgent concern to partner organizations in their program areas. Students in the CP2 track gain valuable research skills and build capacity to communicate ideas to diverse publics.
Expositions Magazine
Expositions Magazine—CEGU’s student-led publication—embodies critical engagement with urban spaces and environments by equipping students to effectively communicate complex environmental and urban issues to a wider audience. Expositions is uniquely designed to help students transform theoretical knowledge and abstract data into practical and persuasive public communication, culminating in the creation of a magazine with professional-level production values and accessible, intelligent writing. Students are challenged to meet rigorous standards, and in the process they hone a broad array of analytical and representational tools, learning to use various media effectively and understanding the impact of media formats and editorial choices. Students also participate in a collaborative publishing process in the context of a diverse and dynamic team. A core group of 20–30 students, from first-years to fourth-years, works with up to a dozen contributing authors on each issue, along the way developing practical skills such as author-editor relationships and facility with graphic, web design, and print production workflows.
Expositions is advised by CEGU Associate Instructional Professor Evan Carver and Project and Communications Coordinator and Lecturer Carlo Diaz.
CEGU Exhibitions
CEGU Exhibitions is an opportunity for student- and course-curated exhibitions to be displayed in the Urban Lounge of 1155 E 60th St. All students and instructors are welcome to propose exhibitions to be showcased in the Urban Lounge. Proposals are evaluated on a rolling basis. For student-curated proposals, at least one curator must be a current UChicago student. For course-based proposals, the exhibition must be woven into the syllabus and overall workload for the course.
Calumet Quarter
Through a concatenation of cultural practices, social relations and economic processes—all within the indomitable crucible of nature—people don’t just create places, they produce vastly different sorts of places: urban and rural, towns, cities, neighborhoods and villages and their myriad interconnections. This rich geographical tapestry is reason enough for the juggernaut of global tourism.
At the University of Chicago, we study places because of their intrinsic interest but perhaps more importantly, we study places to learn what it means to be human. During Spring 2024, students can embark on this intellectual journey in an immersive learning experience called the “Calumet Quarter.” Through three linked courses, students will take a deep dive into the very specific historical geography of the Calumet region south and east of Chicago and, along the way, gain insights and analytical skills relevant to understanding other places: we develop an approach to place and learn its power. The Calumet Quarter is a collaboration between Chicago Studies and the Committee on Environment, Geography and Urbanization.
Study Abroad
Berlin: Conflict, Community, and Sustainability
Berlin: What makes a city? Who decides how a city grows and changes, and what criteria do they use — should it be beautiful, efficient, sustainable, open, just? How do economic systems and political ideologies shape urban development? What is the “right to the city,” and what does it mean for city-dwellers to exercise it? These are just some of the questions we will seek to answer in our course, Berlin: Conflict, Community, and Sustainability.
This course will expose students to the dynamics of urban change in one of the most historically freighted and contested cities in the world. They will come to understand the complex histories behind Berlin’s urban spaces, and the strategies adopted by local actors to deal with those histories while finding agency to shape them for the future. Students will experience first-hand how spaces have been defined by drivers like economic exigency, political ideology, violence, environmental conditions, non-human species, and technological development, and they will learn how contemporary challenges, including climate change, gentrification, and immigration butt up against competing ambitions for Berlin to become a “global city” and for it to maintain its distinct character. In addition, by considering Berlin as represented in film, this course explores techniques for defining and redefining the meaning of urban space using multisensory media. You will learn about — and ultimately use — film as a tool for analyzing urban space, shaping narratives, and reflecting on urban life in Berlin today.
Paris: Urbanism
Cities have long been an object of study, from artistic inquiry, to historical interpretation, to scientific exploration. Cities and their components are also the subjects of normative theorizing: proposals for how cities ought to be designed. Most recently, cities have become intertwined with concepts of equity and sustainability—that cities should function as places of resiliency, social diversity, and local economic strength. These explorations and design ideals are reflective of broader social, cultural, and political movements that have long yearned for an urbanism that sustains a high quality of life.
The Urbanism sequence integrates three disciplinary approaches: the history of cities, the theoretical basis of urban dynamics, and the normative understanding of cities as objects of planning and design. These three approaches—history, theory, design—will make use of a range of conceptual frameworks and methodologies important to the study of cities.
Apart from classroom work, the Urbanism program offers a series of excursions to sites of academic and cultural interest within and around Paris. Indeed, Paris itself plays a central role in components of the curriculum—the local urban context will offer a grounded exploration of urban historical, theoretical, and normative context. Students will be expected to make full use of the city’s cultural resources.