Temple University
EN-10: Community Partnerships

With the BITS program ongoing for the last fifteen years, we have many returning youth each summer; we see a similar pattern continuing with the Apps and Maps program as well, indicating the relevance and success of this learning model. Internship Model The internship program consists of several projects hosted by the Urban Apps and Maps Studio that will investigate the possibilities of social media to affect change in the urban environment of North Philadelphia. Results of these various projects will be outlines for social media and smartphone applications that would address issues of urban health, urban farming, and related themes grounded in improving the urban spaces and subsequently raise quality of life within North Philadelphia. Through the Urban Apps and Maps Studio we educate, train, and support local youth utilizing digital tools including apps, maps and online content. With this training, the participants in the Urban Apps and Maps Studio are on their way to becoming the next generation of leaders due to their hard earned capability to define urban social problems and create the tools to help alleviate them. Service Learning Model The larger aim of this educational experience is to create and foster a new generation of neighborhood community leaders in Philadelphia from the youth in the program. These students will be able to use this training on to further involve their family and community members all in an attempt to establish a foundation of basic information technology (IT) literacy skills that will act as pathway for fostering community engagement. Service learning through BITS is designed in such a way to develop “digital communities” through student engagement that focuses on solving urban problems, specifically, around economic opportunity, personal and environmental health, safety, and the arts. The program uses geographic fieldwork techniques of critical observation, investigation, and thick description paired with IT skill-building to identify, research, and propose solutions to these urban problems. In addition to this, general reading and writing comprehension is enhanced through the process, and on-location exploration of places in Philadelphia are utilized as a means of identifying innovative solutions. The seemingly intractable problems concerning urban problem solving are contextualized from an issue affecting the entire city as well as affecting each individual citizen. http://appsnmaps.temple.edu/

The Center for Sustainable Communities at Temple University conducts integrated social and environmental research on natural, technological, and socio-economic systems to address the challenges of sustainability—how can we meet the needs of people locally and globally through equitable, innovative and practical solutions that protect the environment which sustains life on the planet.

The Center for the Humanities at Temple (CHAT) fosters innovative research by faculty and graduate students in the humanities and humanistic social sciences. Faculty and graduate students in all schools and colleges at Temple are eligible to participate in the Center’s programs. Throughout the year, it offers research grants and fellowships, operates an ongoing research seminar, develops two lecture series, and forges intellectual partnerships with other regional and international universities. CHAT works to bridge the disciplinary divide between departments and colleges by promoting broad, humanities-based conversations that connect scholars from multiple scholarly fields.

http://appsnmaps.temple.edu/activities/summer-program-model/ https://www.cla.temple.edu/center-for-sustainable-communities/ https://www.cla.temple.edu/center-for-the-humanities/