Making Across the Curriculum – Making Social Change

It is perhaps easier to understand how making applies to the STEM/STEAM disciplines than to disciplines like sociology.  In an effort to foster a Making Across the Curriculum ecosystem at the college, it’s important to find ways to empower faculty and students in every discipline with the tools and technologies, and perhaps more importantly the philosophy and ethos of the maker movement.  To that end, Diane Carlson (Professor of Sociology) and I have been working on developing a sociology course called “Making Social Change.”  Here’s a draft description:

Empowerment through the development of technological skills and access to tools is and will continue to be a significant issue in social justice work and social change.  In this interdisciplinary course, students will explore social change through movements, organizations, and groups and the ways those entities use, create, modify, and improve tools and technologies to support and drive change.  Students will analyze the contexts and tactics of these movements and synthesize their discoveries with hands-on experience using tools and technologies of the maker movement to develop projects designed to address social, environmental, and economic needs.

Below are artifacts of the two most recent brainstorming sessions:

Gandhi was a maker.

This photo of Gandhi is in the Public Domain.