Co-designing IdeaSquare's forthcoming educational endeavour taking us on a cosmic journey and then back to Earth
At the beginning of this year, the IdeaSquare team embarked on an exciting two-week pilot initiative aimed at testing a novel educational methodology in connection with the Sustainable Development Goals. At its core, this approach hinges on a bold question: What if humanity were compelled to start anew on an entirely different planet? How could we make choices that prioritise sustainability? Moreover, could the knowledge gained during this cosmic journey be effectively applied to real-world situations on Earth? Drawing valuable insights from this pilot, we extended an invitation to educators and collaborators to collectively shape the blueprint for our forthcoming educational endeavour: IdeaSquare Planet.
At IdeaSquare, we are passionately encouraging all our partner organizations to join forces with us in reimagining the current design-driven educational practices, devised to address the complex challenges we confront as humankind. In this spirit, we are proposing an innovative methodology grounded in a two-fold expedition. We beckon students to embark on an imaginary voyage to an exoplanet, encouraging them to later return to Earth, where they can harness their acquired skills in areas such as systems thinking, order of magnitude estimations, sustainable management of limited resources, and the capacity to challenge the status quo among others.
Just last week, we had the privilege of hosting the IdeaSquare Planet Development Workshop, an event that brought together educators and collaborators from a range of organizations spanning the CERN Member States and beyond. We all shared the insights gleaned from our two-week pilot programme, offering attendees a glimpse into the potential form of this future educational program. Together, we embarked on a collaborative journey to craft a prototype for a modular curriculum and establish a transition timeline leading to a comprehensive program.
We took a similar philosophy to the programme: the first day was dedicated to imagining and co-creating the best experience we could offer together, our ideal vision, and the second day was all about bringing it back to our current setting and planning a pathway for implementation on the short and medium term.
The atmosphere in the room was electrifying, driven by the spirit of collaboration and a shared vision. With each participant contributing their unique expertise and insights, we are now one step closer to launching a programme that will empower students with new mindset tools.
Our innovative approach leans on the power of science fiction narratives, allowing students to envision and redesign society from the ground up. Science-based elements such as quantitative and qualitative analysis, grant the students the opportunity to think expansively while at the same time translating their newfound knowledge into actionable solutions for real-world challenges, such as the Sustainable Development Goals.
IdeaSquare is planning several pilots by next year with collaborators from all over the world in order to test the different modules and keep iterating. Once again, stay tuned to know more about the evolution of this programme!
