TeachingCity partners the City of Oshawa, Durham College (DC), Ontario Tech University and Trent University Durham Greater Toronto Area (GTA) celebrated the fall City Idea Lab student showcase on December 4 at the Civic Recreation Complex.
The fall student showcase highlighted the results of four City Idea Lab courses across the three post-secondary institutions. The courses focused on a variety of challenge questions, including how the City might eliminate barriers to Oshawa Youth Council participation, how to better engage the community on matters related to sustainability, how can the profile for what the community is doing to address poverty through investigative reporting be raised, and how can art be used to tell the stories of Oshawa's 55+ residents. Approximately 50 students were enrolled in these courses and collaborated to develop posters to display their innovative solutions.
City staff worked closely with the students, delivering presentations at the onset of the courses to provide background information on the topics. City staff also visited the student groups multiple times to help co-design the solutions. This student cohort represented a variety of fields of study, including Child and Youth Studies, Media, Art and Design, and Social Sciences and Humanities.
The posters presented at the showcase will remain on display at the Oshawa Civic Recreation Complex until Friday, December 6 and then move to Oshawa City Hall from Monday, December 9 through Friday, December 13.
City staff are currently working with the partner institutions to establish the challenge questions for the next cohort of City Idea Lab, which will once again include students from DC, Ontario Tech University and Trent University Durham GTA. The new semester, the fourth since the City Idea Lab's inception, begins in January 2020 with the student showcase taking place in April.
City Idea Lab has been generously supported by RBC Futures Launch.
Quotes
"This TeachingCity event is a great way to showcase the innovative ideas and co-designed solutions that came out of another amazing City Idea Lab semester," said Oshawa Mayor Dan Carter. "We look forward to continuing to work with our future leaders and post-secondary partners to find innovative solutions for the Oshawa community."
"Today's showcase is the culmination of months of hard work and effort on the part of the students, faculty, City of Oshawa and the other TeachingCity partners," said Don Lovisa, president, Durham College. "It's very rewarding to see this initiative come to life in a real and meaningful way. This cohort's success is a strong indicator that this type of immersive learning benefits all parties involved."
"Our students gain invaluable experiences from their connectivity to dynamic environments like the City Idea Lab," said Dr. Steven Murphy, President and Vice-Chancellor, Ontario Tech University. "By mobilizing the depth of expertise in the post-secondary educational sector and aligning it with leadership in industry and community organizations, the City of Oshawa and TeachingCity partners have created a remarkable template for the acceleration of economic growth and social innovation."
"The opportunity for Trent Durham students to work with our TeachingCity partners and have their work showcased through the City Idea Lab is invaluable," said Dr. Scott Henderson, Dean & Head, Trent University Durham GTA. "Providing an experiential learning opportunity for each student is a high priority for Trent University Durham as it enables students to enhance what they learn in the classroom with meaningful work experience. We appreciate this partnership led by the City of Oshawa and the innovative collaboration between city matters and post-secondary education."
"We've seen a need to invest in experiential learning. It inspires an innovation mindset and goes beyond traditional models of learning," said Gord O'Neill, Regional Vice President of RBC's Kawartha Durham market. "This is precisely what the City Idea Lab achieves. Programs like these help youth explore their interests, test their limits and do more than they themselves thought they could."
About City Idea Lab
City Idea Lab is an innovative curriculum-based program that allows for post-secondary students to work directly with faculty and City of Oshawa staff to co-design solutions to local issues through knowledge transfer, dialogue and experimentation.
City Idea Lab courses run out of the TeachingCity Hub, an open-concept space dedicated to facilitate TeachingCity projects with the City's education and research partners, including students, faculty and staff. The Hub provides opportunities for TeachingCity partners to share access to facilities, resources and equipment, and includes office, classroom and open lab space.
About TeachingCity
TeachingCity brings together the City of Oshawa and its education and research partners - Canadian Urban Institute, Durham College, Ontario Tech University, Trent University Durham Greater Toronto Area, and the University of Toronto's Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering.
The partners address Oshawa's urban issues through innovation, collaboration, applied research and shared experiential learning opportunities with the aim to position Oshawa as a local, national and global community of urban research and learning.
Learn more about TeachingCity Oshawa at www.teachingcityoshawa.ca and follow #OshTeachingCity on Twitter and Instagram.
For more information
2000 Simcoe Street North
Oshawa Ontario
Canada L1H 7K4
www.durhamcollege.ca/
