Project: The Glocal Challenge

October 10, 2019

The Glocal Challenge 

Objectives:

At the end of this project, you will be able to:

• Gather information from reliable sources like reviewed articles, scholarly books, web pages associated with governments or universities, or scientific studies.

• Use vocabulary related to a specific topic from your areas of study such as modern design issues, nature into architecture, racial inequality, among other topics

• Analyze these topics by describing their context, evaluating facts and summarizing information about them.

• Give a recommendation based on the information gathered.     

Task Description (purpose, context, situation, audience):

Aims:  

• You will learn about entrepreneurship.
• You will identify a social issue that presents a significant challenge in your context.The issue may concern science, education, development, conflict, and/or any other subject that interests students.
• You will write a project proposal which includes a short description of the social issue, the description of a product or service to address the issue constructively, and its impact.
• You will have a business pitch to present their product or service to a panel of judges.

Situation and Context: 

What is the Glocal Challenge?

The Glocal Challenge is a contest-based program facilitated by Medellín mayor’s office, and the Universidad Nacional to help university students learn critical 21st Century Skills, gain global competence and receive real-world experience in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math). Each year, the mayor’s office and the university ask students to solve a challenge locally that has global implications. Through the Glocal Challenge, students will be placed in teams of 3-5 students, invent a creative idea to solve the challenge, and then pitch their idea to expert judges. The winning student teams will receive seed funding to kick-start their projects, and paid summer internships in an English speaking country. 

Audience: Selection Committee (Teacher, Classmates, other members from the University Community)

Steps and processes:

Step 1: Opening

In class, you will explore different issues that represent a significant challenge in our world today. The issues may concern science, education, development, conflict, and/or any other subject that interests students. You will gather in groups of three or four and choose an issue you are interested in.

Step 2: Exploration & Preparation

1. You come up with innovations to address the issue constructively. Innovations could be a physical product, a service or a combination of the two.
2. You learn how to access databases and other sources of reliable information to search for more information about the chosen topic.
3. You learn about reading strategies to read the selected articles and prepare a graphic organizer to present the collected information.
4. You prepare a project proposal which includes an introduction (description of the problem), objectives, a solution.
5. A template for the project proposal will be provided in class.
6. You design a website to present their project proposal.
7. You pitch your projects at the jury.

Genre: Project Proposal

Resources:

You may find an academic paper in this database:

www.Freefullpdf.com
www.redalyc.org
www.scielo.org
search.carrot2.org
dialnet.unirioja.es
scholar.google.es

The university also counts on databases available for the academic community using the username and password:
http://sinab.unal.edu.co/index.php/recursos-bibliograficos/bases-de-datos