Science-Based Innovation Studios are created to be a vibrant workspace where the Center brings together local partners from community-based programs and student-led design teams. Participants share a common interest in early childhood development to mobilize scientific knowledge, leverage “real-world” wisdom, and apply “design-led” problem-solving to move beyond traditional ways of thinking. Teams identify unmet challenges faced by programs and work collaboratively toward innovative, science-informed solutions.
During the course of this year-long, non-credit workshop series, three design teams work with coaches from the Center on the Developing Child to frame a design challenge relevant to the local partner, explore its root causes, generate an innovative solution, and test a prototype. Each Center-led design team is comprised of one local partner and a team of 3 to 4 students who have been selected from a competitive pool of applicants. Using human-centered design methods, the studio workshops draw on the Center’s early childhood science framework as a source of creative insight and inspiration to design bold solutions aimed at breakthrough impacts for children facing adversity [1].
A total of six studio workshops are hosted monthly by the Center, ending with a learning expo, during which the design teams present their solutions to a panel of design, innovation, and field leaders.
- Workshop #1: Meet partners and frame a design challenge
- Workshop #2: Explore root causes: Ethnography
- Workshop #3: Drive a bold new vision: Identify alternative perspectives
- Workshop #4: Brainstorming and science boosters: Generating multiple innovative solutions
- Workshop #5: Prototype and test
- Workshop #6: Harvest lessons learned: Redesign
- Learning Expo