Schedule

⤟ Spring 2025 ⤠

WELCOME!

Please fill out this welcome survey before our first meeting. Thank you!

Class 1 – Jan 21

✲ RECLAIMING RESILIENCE ✲

IN CLASS Welcome to our Learning Community  Introductions What is this class about, the syllabus, class schedule, expectations, assignments & resources Why is care important?  Activities: Redefining Resilience, together Reflections and assignments ASSIGNMENTS FOR NEXT CLASS Set up a Process Site to document your process online and share the link with your instructor.  What is your current definition of resilience and what are some tools/techniques you are interested in implementing to support your own resilience?  This will be a work in progress that you can continue to edit and redefine as we research this topic together in the following weeks. Go on a quest to find examples, tools/techniques associated with it, or organizations that are doing interesting work in this space and that can inspire your own reclaiming of this term. Choose your own personal well-being & resilience tool and please document it with a short reflection: feel committed – Is there a practice/habit/self-care ritual that you have been meaning to try and take on? Maybe it’s nature journaling, daily writing, a weekly not-work-related practice, breathing exercises, or experimental art-making… Look no further! This could be an opportunity to try something new and commit to it for the rest of this semester.  feel prepared – Make a go-bag list and spreadsheet and start collecting items to assemble and keep handy! feel grounded – Experience a new piece of nature. Find your closest community garden, or take the train to a local beach, visit a new park, or find your own way to experience local nature (for free) in the midst of a very busy time.  feel restored –  Physical exercise can be extremely helpful but if are like me and struggle to commit to an exercise routine, maybe you can try these restorative Yoga poses at home without the need for any special equipment. Readings How To Do Nothing, Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell (Introduction & Ch. 1)  The 9 Dimensions of Super-Resilience Watch Start collecting found/recycled materials Optional reading: Hopeful Resilience.  Optional activity: Make yourself a mindfulness tool to reclaim some time for you, for example, a mindfulness jar (easiest, more complex).

Class 2 – Jan 28

⚯ THINKING IN SYSTEMS ⚯

IN CLASS Sharing & discussion Systems Thinking & Systems Dynamics Guest: Ahmed Ansari (NYU IDM) Activities:  Dave Snowden on Cynefin 12 Systems Archetypes Reflections & assignments ASSIGNMENTS FOR NEXT CLASS What do you think makes a community resilient? How is community resilience different from personal resilience? How are they related? Are there communities/community-driven projects that you think are interesting examples of this? Please share your findings and your own definition of community resilience on your Process site.  With your definition of community resilience in mind, embark on your own community discovery adventure and document it on your site through a short reflection:  feel connected – Map your immediate community and its resources (with paper & pencil or mapping tools like Miro, Mural or anything in between!) This facilities tool from NYC might be an interesting example to look at. Through this process please identify local Community-based Organizations (aka CBOs) in your area that play an active role in the resilience of your community. Conduct some observations, reach out and get involved with them. Also incredibly important is to understand and actively participate in your local government by researching your neighborhood’s Community Board to try and get involved by attending the next Community Board meeting to better understand what your neighborhood’s needs and priorities are. If you live in the NYC area this might be a place to start.  Readings Resilience Thinking: Sustaining Ecosystems and People in a Changing World, Ch.2 The Systems Rules “Awakening the sleeping giant”: re-Indigenization principles for transforming biodiversity conservation in Canada and beyond Speaking Nature’s Language Watch  Russell Ackoff on systems thinking Watch Why Not in Our Backyards? (Systems thinking in practice) Biomimicry (short video,longer video).  Additional Resources: the SDA website, RSD website & Systemic Design Toolkit (feel free to browse through these) Optional readings: The Earth Charter and UN Sustainable Development Goals. Optional activity: Embark on the 30 days of reconnection to nature challenge!

Class 3 – Feb 4

⚘ GROWING YOUR OWN FOOD ⚘

IN CLASS Sharing & discussion Distributed vs. local food production Food systems & intro to waste-free food growing strategies at home Guest: Samuel T. Pressman (Samuel’s Food Gardens, Green Garden Truck) Activities: Growing your own microgreens (& more) Regrowing techniques Making a self watering pot using recycled materials Seed library exchange Reflections & assignments ASSIGNMENTS FOR NEXT CLASS Choose your own Grow Lab experiment, document the process and share your reflection on the experience on your blog: Grow – Grow your own: microgreens (seeds will be supplied!) or grow something else you want from reclaimed seeds and germinate it indoors. Are there seeds from your life or memory that hold a special place for you? Maybe specific flavors from dishes or traditional foods that have a particular meaning for you and you wish you could grow on your own? Check out seed exchanges in NYC to see if you can get your hands on some and bring some to share! Regrow – Re-grow from kitchen scrap and see what happens! Green Guerrilla – Take some growing outdoors, by activating an underutilized public patch through a guerrilla gardening intervention (like making & dropping seed bombs). Alternatively, identify your local community garden and reach out to get involved (they might be in the planning stages for the season which is a great time to get involved). Readings  How To Thrive In The Next Economy by John Thackara (Ch. 2) How To Thrive In The Next Economy by John Thackara (Ch. 4) Skim through Food and Green Space in Cities: A Resilience Lens on Gardens and Urban Environmental Movements Watch  Grow & regrow your own food Benny’s Grow Lab experiments  Optional activity: Adventure into growing your own oyster mushrooms.

Class 4 – Feb 11

♺  FOOD PRESERVATION & REGROWTH ♺

IN CLASS Sharing & discussion Dealing with food waste: redistribution before composting Funding urban food systems Guest: Gil Lopez (Big Reuse, Western Queens Community Land Trust, Smiling Hogshead Ranch)  Activities: Bring an item from your pantry/refrigerator! Have you ever wondered where it comes from? We will go on a quest to map its journey in as many steps and details as we can. Fermentation or pickling in our kitchen.  Reflections & assignments ASSIGNMENTS FOR NEXT CLASS Keep up with your planting & growing (don’t let them die!) Choose your own fermentation or preservation journey, document it and reflect on it in your Process Site. If you need inspiration you can check out techniques for preserving foods like Canning, pickling, freezing: Sourdough – Begin your Sourdough starter journey! Yogurt – Prepare your own Yogurt culture (video+tips) Pickles – Make Nukazuke or Pickle something  Compost – Begin Composting and seek out composting resources to support you! Your local community garden might be a good place to start. Alternatively, you can turn your fruit scrap into fruit leather or get creative with ways to reuse/upcycle your food waste (making natural dyes, stock, and more!).  Readings How To Thrive In The Next Economy by John Thackara (Ch. 3) How To Thrive In The Next Economy by John Thackara (Ch. 5) Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World by Paul Stamets (Ch. 1) Watch Urban Foraging adventure in Prospect Park Composting 101 video More sprouting tips in this video and guide Optional readings: Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures Optional activity: Visit a community garden on your own, in person or remotely (look for the social media accounts of local gardens for virtual tours!). They might be closed for the season but many of them are open for composting so you can check out that process. Let me know if you need help finding one!

Class 5 – Feb 25

☽ ENVIRONMENTAL SENSING ☾

IN CLASS Sharing & reading discussion Introduction to citizen science & sensing: Microcontrollers & breadboards  Inputs vs. Outputs / Digital vs. Analog  Reading sensors & serial communication Activity (with yours truly): Arduino Hello World! Reading from the environment (soil moisture) Graphing data  Reflections & assignments ASSIGNMENTS FOR NEXT CLASS Repeat the steps we covered in class and supported by slides to get the Arduino reading and plotting the data from the capacitive soil moisture sensor. Pick a plant and take some readings to get a better understanding of the range of values specific to your plant and the level of moisture in the soil. Document it on your website and please post questions on Slack!  When ready, think about your own environmental condition to monitor (to keep your experiments alive) and reach out if you want one of the below sensors to play with:  Temperature – Through a TMP36 sensor  Humidity – Through a or DHT11 sensor Light – Through a photoresistor Position – Movement (through the built-in IMU) or if your board doesn’t include an IMU, you could make your own switch to sense other kinds of actions/movements/triggers.  Readings What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses  Community Engagements with Living Sensing Systems Watch How to read a datasheet. Please choose an electrical component, search for its datasheet and read through it, trying to familiarize yourself and grasp as much as you can. Optional activity: Make your own Soil moisture sensor from scratch

Class 6 – Mar 4

✗ CITIZEN SCIENCE ✗

IN CLASS Sharing & reading discussion Troubleshooting  Storing & saving data Activities: Troubleshooting More sensors! Sensors from ASRC Community Sensor Lab Reflections & assignments ASSIGNMENTS FOR NEXT CLASS Start collecting & storing data from your environment and choose your own data exploration and document it on your site through a short reflection:  Dashboard – Play with the Arduino IoT Cloud & App if you have access to an IoT board or play with the BLE communication between the Arduino Nano 33 BLE and your computer or phone. Start collecting & storing data from your environment!  Add Sensors – Choose another data point to collect alongside the sensor data you are already collecting. How can that inform your understanding of the environment more? Close the Loop – Think through and sketch out a closed-loop system that responds to your sensor data by doing something in return.   Enclose – Design and roughly prototype an enclosure/housing for your environmental sensing device that can withstand the elements. Readings  Smart Compost Monitoring System using Open Source Technologies Connected Seeds and Sensors: Co-designing Internet of Things for Sustainable Smart Cities with Urban Food-Growing Communities.  I highly recommend the Netflix Series Connected, the episode on Clouds is especially relevant.

Class 7 – Mar 11

✧ REMOTE MONITORING ✧

IN CLASS Sharing & reading discussion Physical computing review & questions Data storage and data visualization options Guest: Green Light District at El Puente, Brooklyn (TBD)  Activities: Troubleshooting Collecting, transmitting and visualizing data    How to make your own Wireless Access Point  Run your own Website & Server Reflections & assignments ASSIGNMENTS FOR NEXT CLASS Fill out Self Assessment #1 Choose your own networking quest: Environmental Monitor – Finish building your environmental sensing system with at least one sensor and accessible data for you to use.  Wireless Scavenger Hunt – Go on a wireless infrastructure walk in your area and document how many devices and other networking hardware you can find. Take pictures and post your findings and documentation of your local telecom infrastructure and sensors. Use Networks of New York by Ingrid Burrington as a guide! Tom made a super helpful map to locate some of these points!  Guess Who? – Who owns your tech? Make a list of communication technology tools you rely on and think through the following questions/activities by Community Tech NY (who we will visit soon!). Investigate how these technologies impact you, your community, and where possible identify community-based or open-source alternatives. Network Ethos – Imagine a new community network for your area, what digital justice principles would you like to draft to discuss with your community members as a blueprint for this network? For inspiration, you can check out: the Detroit Digital Justice Principles, A Feminist Server Manifesto, DWeb Principles and more. Readings Cellular Biology, Wireless Towers from The 99% Invisible City (Cellular Biology & Network Effects) Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet (read 2 chapters of your choice) Watch Peering into Internet Infrastructure with Ingrid Burrington Optional activity: See if your area has a community-based network or open wifi network. For example, in NYC you can take a walk around Red Hook and test drive their free Red Hook Wifi. Or you might be an area server by NYC Mesh which is always welcoming volunteers. If you want to take a closer look at what is happening on that network (or on your own Wifi network) you can use this handy application Debookee. You can also listen to almost ANY radio frequency using a cheap SDR (Software Defined Radio) dongle: Video, tutorial and more resources on US spectrum here. (this requires a SDR which you can borrow from me! Optional readings: The Undersea Network by Nicole Starosielski

Class 8 – Mar 18

☼ HARVESTING ENERGY ☼

IN CLASS Sharing & reading discussion A brief introduction to energy infrastructure  Transduction and harnessing different forms of energy Foundations of small-scale photovoltaics systems Activities (with yours truly): Basics of off-grid energy systems How to solar power your own device Reflections & assignments ASSIGNMENTS FOR NEXT CLASS Experiment with solar! Finish building your own solar charging system or build your own seasonally-affected bot and document it on your site through a short reflection. It could be a small device/service/server that reacts to environmental conditions and changes and responds by either making sound, lighting up, or doing something interesting! Begin thinking and brainstorming about what you are interested in exploring through your final research.  Readings  Main components of small off grid systems How Does Your State Make Electricity? by By Nadja Popovich and Brad Plumer Solar Protocol: Exploring Energy Centered Design by Tega Brain, Alex Nathanson and Benedetta Piantella Watch Power Rockaways Resilience

Class 9 – Apr 1

⨳ COMMUNITY NETWORKING @ EL PUENTE BK ⨳

IN CLASS Sharing & reading discussion How does our Telecommunication infrastructure works  Community Wireless Networks  Visit to: El Puente Bushwick Leadership Center in Williamsburg Activity:  Don’t Panic Organize!  We are going to explore the Portable Network Kit Project (PNKs) for Community-owned networks from Community Tech NY, and El Puente’s Digital Stewards will explain how the system works and how to put one together!  Reflections & assignments ASSIGNMENTS FOR NEXT CLASS This would be a good time to go back to your original definitions of personal and community resilience and see if there are any changes you might want to make in light of the research and concepts you have explored so far.  Is there an assignment/concept/lecture from the previous weeks that you want to revisit, add to or redo? This is your chance!  Is there a scenario, event, challenge that you are interested in exploring or creating media around? Let’s start researching ideas for the Final Exploration. Begin immersing yourself in that space by reading up more about its context, application, challenge and collecting materials, references and information around it. We are going to spend next meeting discussing the themes you have highlighted and getting folks (ideally) into working groups. Document all of the above on your blogs.  Readings Building resilience with community technology across the United States Watch Red Hook Wifi: The impact of Free Community Internet Optional: Infrastructure: Building The World We Deserve  & NYC Internet Infrastructure Plan (previous administration, it is very interesting to see how this plan has changed with the current administration)

Class 10 – Apr 8

⧉ GRAPHIC FOR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS ⧉

IN CLASS Sharing & reading discussion Resilience Review & introduction to Final Exploration Introduction to social movement iconography and graphic history Introduction to Riso Printing & IDM Print Lab Visit to: Interference Archive Activity: Hands-on activity: Poster printing using a Risograph machine and stamp-making using social movement iconographies Brainstorming ideas for the Final Experiment  Reflections & assignments ASSIGNMENTS FOR NEXT CLASS Choose your own Final Experimentation adventure and get started on the journey (all steps below): Solidify your project idea and create a concept/mess map of your topic Start researching and mapping out your topic Make a timeline for the next few weeks of development Start ideating and make a list of needs (materials, tools & skills required) Document this process on your blogs Readings Designs For The Pluriverse, Out of the studio and into the flow of Socionatural Life, Ch. 1

Class 11 – Apr 15 [TBD]

✐ DESIGNING ✐

IN CLASS Sharing & reading discussion Introduction to Interference Archive with IA volunteer Guest: TBD  Activities:  We are going to explore the archive and share a few discoveries with the group Cyanotypes on paper & fabric. (Outdoors if the weather allows or indoors).  Reflections & assignments ASSIGNMENTS FOR NEXT CLASS With your group: Design and sketch your ideas out  Draft your story and content for your zine/poster Build a rough prototype & think about what elements you would like to get early feedback on next week Continue iterating and playing around with content and form Readings: Design for Transitions, Ch. 5 from Designs for the Pluriverse by Arturo Escobar

TBA @2pm-5pm

✷ SOLAR HANGOUT @ LOW PWR LAB ✷

Come on over to Low Pwr Lab, in room #XXX, to explore and play with different off-grid systems like the Portable Network Kit (PNKs) from Community Tech NY, a solar-powered blockchain node (GIGA Connect) and other small off-grid energy systems for charging devices through solar.

Class 12 – Apr 22

 ✁ CRITICAL MAKING ✁

IN CLASS Sharing & check-in on project Examples of contemporary artists’ books and zines The relationship between form and content Guest: TBD Activities: Creating a zine using a binding technique of your choice: one-page zine, accordion fold, flag book, pamphlet stitch. Project work day Reflections & assignments ASSIGNMENTS FOR NEXT CLASS With your group: Iterate on your project/poster/zine prototype Print and test! Readings: Critical Making: Conceptual and Material Studies in Technology and Social Life by Matt Rizzo

Class 13 – Apr 29

❀ URBAN FARMING ❀

IN CLASS Project check-ins & discussion Visit to local urban farm/garden.  Activities: Tour of the Farm and Education Center!  Hands-on workshop Reflections & assignments ASSIGNMENTS FOR NEXT CLASS With your group: Make. Make. Make. Print. Print. Print.   Iterate once more on your exploration Synthesize your process and lessons learned and prepare to share your exploration with the rest of the community!  Fill out Self Assessment #2 Course Evaluations are live now!

TBA – 10am-1pm

✿ DIRTY YOUR HANDS @ MOORE JACKSON COMMUNITY GARDEN ✿

More details coming soon! Every year, at the reopening of the growing season, MJCG hosts a series of events. I usually organize some STEAM activities for kids and adults to engage in around media and the environment, let’s do this together! 

Class 14 – May 6

✰ KNOWLEDGE SHARING ✰

IN CLASS Zine printing/Media distribution Final sharing & feedback Publishing Party & Showcase Hotwash & reflections Course evaluations  FINAL ASSIGNMENTS Find somewhere to place your zine in the wild!  Final documentation Course evaluations

⤟ The END ⤠