Co-designing a culturally sensitive makerspace
Alice Agogino, Professor
Mechanical Engineering
Closed. This professor is continuing with Spring 2024 apprentices on this project; no new apprentices needed for Fall 2024.
This research project originated from a longstanding relationship between the Pinoleville Pomo Nation from Northern California and an interdisciplinary research group from UC Berkeley. After conversations with the Tribal Council and researchers’ participation in tribal gatherings, issues around well-being, and education were identified as areas of common interest. One of the tribe’s long standing interests in STEM/STEAM/making Education opened up specific opportunities to engage in the co-design of a makerspace. However, given the history of colonialism and intended erasure of Indigeneity throughout the world, it has been central to this project to have opportunity to define the pillars of making and its sociopolitical values in a way that opens up a space for the enactment of the sovereignty of this particular Native American community.
As a first step to the co-design process this project seeks to investigate the beliefs and values implicit in the cultural practices of the members of the community and also study how making practices have embedded in them Indigenous worldviews. We see this set of notions feeding right into macro-scale questions connected to the kind of world/life/society the community envisions for their peoples. Meso and micro-scale questions (i.e., what are the contributions of Education and STEM/STEAM fields in the making and sustaining of that world/life/society?) will be addressed through the analysis of interviews and artifacts created during co-design workshops with the community. The findings will be translated into a set of design principles that will result in a plan for the implementation of the “[ ]-Space.” (The temporary label “[ ]-Space” has been used to refer to the program given that community members will choose the final name for the project as a small but symbolic way of enacting their self-determination)
We are looking for students who are passionate about education and are interested in learning how to analyze data. As part of the research team, you will engage in the reduction and analysis of the corpus of data. To be able to do so you will receive mentorship from the lead graduate student.
Role: Undergraduate students are sought to work on:
Tasks may include:
· Coding data
· Creating data visualizations
Qualifications: We are excited about diverse candidates who bring a unique perspective and background, who are passionate about education, and/or engineering education, and who are open to learning new things!
Preferred qualifications:
- You have experience working with indigenous communities
- You are interested in social and environmental justice
- You are part of an indigenous community
- You are interested in Maker Education
Hours: 9-11 hrs
Off-Campus Research Site: Zoom
Related website: https://best.berkeley.edu/cares-community-assessment-of-renewable-energy-and-sustainability/
Engineering, Design & Technologies Social Sciences