Our sponsors work with WPI students to create purposeful projects that sit at the intersection between society and technology. Here you will find examples of projects completed with the support and guidance of our partners.
Deliverables consist of a magazine-style booklet or project report, as well as other outputs mutually determined with each sponsor. These other outputs have included videos, websites, assessment materials, policy briefs, etc. Please click on the links below to see a sampling of project booklets by theme.
Spring 2024
Shifting Seasonality and Its Impact on Urban Beekeeping
Climate change is shifting the timing of seasonal events across the world, impacting practices that rely on consistent seasonal patterns such as beekeeping. Beekeeping has become increasingly difficult as beekeepers struggle to adapt their techniques to unpredictable weather patterns caused by climate change. In collaboration with CALENDARS, a study examining seasonal events and how they impact societies, the team created a proposal for an app that will assist beekeepers in adjusting their practices in response to shifting seasonality. Through interviews with beekeeping associations, we determined a connection between the practices of a beekeeper and the way that they rely on seasons. However, the rise of precipitation and temperature trends in Germany emphasized the need for beekeepers to adjust their practices to the changes in seasonality. Beekeepers have a diverse set of practices that they use to help maintain the health of their hives. Beekeepers and their organizations mostly subscribe to one of two philosophies. Some take a hands-off approach focused on natural hive strength and survival, which allows the bees to act as they would in nature, in the hopes of creating independent colonies. Other beekeepers take a more active role in managing their hives. This approach is marked by the adaptation of various chemicals to handle the rise of varroa mites during warmer winter months. A cultural difference was recognized within the beekeeping community, as some beekeepers utilized technology while others kept to the traditional methods of beekeeping. Based on a literature review and expert interviews, the main areas of technological innovation relevant to small-scale beekeeping were sensors and apps. The team found an abundance of data stored within apps, but very few methods to draw conclusions. Finally, an app was proposed with novel features addressing problems found during research. These features include the tracking of weather patterns, creating a database of beekeeping practices, and developing a tool to draw conclusions for beekeepers about the data they collect. This app would enable beekeepers to understand the climate around them, its impact on their practice, and methods to curb these effects.
Improving Brand Recognition and Association for Poetry Organizations
Connection, expression, creation, and love; poetry is an integral component of any flourishing culture. Recognizing these fundamental roles that poetry plays, the city of Berlin funds many institutions with the aim of promoting the growth of the poetic arts. Despite their relative popularity, poetry organizations often struggle to communicate brand associations to their user base, leading to a perceived disconnect between associated brands. We provided effective recommendations for increasing brand association and user engagement for the Berlin-based poetry organization Haus für Poesie and its many subsidiary brands. Using expert interviews, website and social media analytics, surveys, focus groups, and a broad literature review this project identified an expected gap in brand association among users of Haus für Poesie’s website and its subsidiary lyrikline.org. Some potential root problems include inadvertent exclusion of non-Berliners, poor optimization for search results, poor optimization for mobile browsers, and lack of clarity in branding. This research also pointed to social media and branding techniques that could be used to improve brand awareness and cohesion. The recommendations to address these issues and integrate previous branding strategies include mock-ups of potential redesigns of websites and logos, plans to integrate some sub-brands into the main Haus für Poesie website, a continuation of strong social media strategy, and backend website changes to optimize for searches and mobile users. The recommendations from this project will drive greater public engagement for Haus für Poesie and similar poetry organizations, helping support poetry in Berlin and worldwide. This support of poetry worldwide is critical in nurturing a peaceful, inclusive, communicative world.
Customer Relations Management (CRM) Integration for Refugee Assistance in Berlin
In recent times, the refugee and migrant population has skyrocketed in the Federal Republic of Germany. Many have been forcibly displaced from their homes and sought somewhere welcoming and safe. While Germany has established policies to welcome refugees, there are still prevalent issues including language barriers, racism and prejudice, and social marginalization that cause immigrants to feel isolated and unwanted. In the past, immigrants have been pushed towards assimilating however, now activists and organizations are changing those ideals. Our team researched the history of refugees in Berlin to gain a deeper understanding of why Give Something Back To Berlin (GSBTB) was founded and their development. During the research, the team learned about how refugees were treated before and after the protests at Oranienplatz, which showed the public the struggles facing the refugees causing activists to start speaking up. GSBTB took on the ideals shown in Oranienplatz and created a mission of moving towards an inclusive society with adaptive communities that accept the ever-changing culture integration brings. GSBTB has taken a lot of inspiration from the topics brought up in this report including the support of the welcome culture forming in Germany to form a new vision for an inclusive society in Germany. This includes the racist views many still have against the newcomers of Germany. Throughout this project, we supported GSBTB and enhanced their mission by organizing their contacts and implementing new features for their customer relation management (CRM) tool on Monday.com. The reorganization opened opportunities for us to adopt new metrics into their CRM, such as social media analytics and surveys. Through the extension CoEfficient, we imported social media data into Google Sheets for easy access. Additionally, we documented our additions in a manual for GSBTB to use in the future. Finally, we created a social map of organizations with descriptions, locations, and website details to foster connections. Overall, our team focused on building infrastructure that will allow GSBTB to continue with its mission: making Berlin a city where all people, regardless of background, will feel valued and welcome.
Supporting the Growth of Inclusive Societies in Germany
Today’s society should prioritize addressing a community’s social emotional well-being and promoting the growth of an inclusive environment. The fluctuation of immigration in Germany requires individuals and communities to have conversations on how to understand and respond to the new cultures and identities that are contributing to the community. To address the importance of inclusive environments, we must tend to the social and emotional well-being of all individuals and groups in order to thrive. Our project team worked with Start With a Friend (SwaF), a Germany-based non-governmental organization (NGO) that focuses on creating a cohesive, diverse, and inclusive society for both locals and newcomers through a tandem partnership program and community events. By conducting interviews with various NGOs and analyzing their outreach material, we identified five main social-emotional components of a cohesive society: respect/tolerance, openness, cultural competency, trust, and empathy. We continued building on these components through research on the Flourishing Framework, TIME Framework and the Belonging Framework. Each framework takes a different approach to address the needs of an inclusive society by either focusing on community-based improvements or the personal growth of an individual. We utilized these findings to tailor our framework to both highlight components that address self-awareness and foster community belonging. These components and the various frameworks researched supported the development of the ROCTE belonging framework. We hope this framework can be incorporated into the methods used by various organizations and SwaF in their efforts to make their communities more inclusive and cohesive.
Legal Technology Improving Asylum Seekers’ Justice in Germany
Access to justice is foundational for any group of people to prosper – this is true for asylum seekers in Germany, who are vulnerable and underserved. Our study explored how legal technology can enhance access to justice for asylum seekers within asylum law. First, we identified the barriers to justice through a comprehensive analysis of relevant statistics, technological interventions, as well as Germany’s unique situation. These include complexities in understanding legal rights, how to pursue redress, where to find information, fostering trust, the language barrier, monetary difficulties, and the disparities in employment faced by asylum seekers. We found few legal tech tools have applications in asylum law, leaving many gaps in coverage. Based on an analysis of the state of general tech tool usage, we concluded that there is great potential in the expansion of these tools. However, using secondary research, literature reviews, and expert interviews, we found there are many barriers to expanding legal tech in asylum law, including financial and political barriers. University partnerships with the public sector as well as increased support from the government to maintain these systems both financially and through cultivating public support could address these barriers. This study not only highlights the specific challenges faced by asylum seekers but also the transformative potential of legal technology within the law. By doing so we aimed to contribute to the broader discourse on legal aid reform as well as support and inspire innovation through technology to better support society’s most underserved groups.
Spring 2023
Evaluating the Effectiveness of Inclusive Programs: A Case Study into Give Something Back to Berlin
Inclusive community-building programs aim to build a more cohesive community by organizing activities and events. These programs often lack resources and are overlooked by donors in favor of more traditional non-profit aid organizations. Our project was designed to take a program as a case study, Give Something Back to Berlin’s Open Kitchen, and determine how inclusive programs build community, describe the environment the Open Kitchen fosters and its benefits, identify the factors that impact retention and transience of program attendees, and recommend viable adaptations to the Open Kitchen program. During this research we observed participants in the Open Kitchen’s social cooking sessions and conducted semi-structured interviews with community members about their experiences with the Open Kitchen. This research led us to observe the benefits and replicability of the Open Kitchen and community-building programs at large. We received enthusiastic praise of the Open Kitchen, and many participants wished that a similar program existed where they lived. Through our research we determined criteria to evaluate a setting for feasibility of a community-based inclusive program, and observed the key characteristics of the Open Kitchen as an inclusive space. Based on our findings, we made recommendations for accessibility, outreach and preparation, program frameworks and how to get involved aimed at the three following groups: program developers and NGOs, researchers, and potential attendees of community-building programs.
Interactive Sustainable Campus Tour
The Free University of Berlin is a public research university located in Berlin, Germany which is known primarily for its program offerings in political science and the humanities. FU-Berlin also maintains a strong program in areas of environmental engineering and overall sustainability. Currently, FU-Berlin offers a public sustainability tour that the campus utilizes for advertising the sustainability highlights to visitors but there is a lack of interest in completing the tour. The project team has been tasked with developing a more interactive campus tour using the platform Actionbound, an app for developing and playing digital scavenger hunts so that students are more inclined to try it.
Viability of Sustainable Business Models: A Case Study of a Sustainable Delivery Service in Berlin
Plastic pollution is a growing problem. This is, in part, due to unsustainable business practices at every stage of the process – from manufacturing to packing to delivery. By switching to sustainable business practices, we may be able to minimize plastic pollution. This paper aims to evaluate the feasibility of a sustainable grocery delivery company in a competitive economic landscape. Using data from a sustainable delivery company, we calculated costs associated with reusable food containers, compared the CO2 emissions of various delivery methods, and analyzed customer feedback. This gave us an understanding of the high operating costs and consumer mistrust faced by sustainable companies. We found that reusable packaging can be economically advantageous if companies enact systems to reduce excess cost. Analysis of our data suggests these changes are much easier to implement as a well-established company with a large customer base rather than a startup. We also found that delivery e-bikes are viable in a city, but an alternative is required to expand to suburban or rural areas. The main barrier to economic viability for a sustainable company is establishing the infrastructure required to reduce costs associated with sustainable practices, improve consumer understanding of their system, and plan for scalability. This suggests that public efforts should focus more on fighting greenwashing or building systems to help established companies make a change towards sustainability.
Legal Tech Self-Service Platform
This booklet details the research and development of a legal tech self-service platform prototype. Small businesses and startups face legal challenges which consume their limited resources. Three research questions and three objectives were established to motivate the research. Working with Berlin-based law firm SKW Schwarz, the project team conducted content analysis, surveys, and interviews to expose current pain points in commercial law practice. With research across size and industry, the team designed a platform prototype for in-house legal support. The concept includes modern technology practices: UI/UX design, workflow automation, and use of AI. The findings and deliverable aim to provide companies—particularly startups—the knowledge and tools to succeed despite their legal hurdles.
Immigration from Iran to Germany: Streamlining the Process with Web Tools
Germany has a long history of refugee resettlement. The number of global refugees has been on the rise for a while, most recently with events such as the Syrian Civil War, the Arab Spring, and the Ukraine-Russia War. Germany has been taking in a large number of refugees in reflection of this influx. In the wake of the civil unrest in Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini, we anticipate a large influx of Iranian asylum seekers to Germany given the precedent of immigration from Iran to Europe. Iran has been one of the top ten refugee-sending countries to Germany for over a decade. With this continual increase of refugees arriving in Germany, we were left with the question: how do newly arrived refugees find the resources and support they need to thrive in their new home? The following paper explores this question through a mixed-methods study to understand the refugee resettlement process and access to resources and information in Germany. Our research primarily consisted of interviews with refugees and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Germany and content analysis on past studies, such as Berlin’s history with refugees and protests in the Middle East, to gain insight into the most difficult aspects of the asylum-seeking process. The most urgent categories of assistance to be included on our website were legal, social service, and community building. From our interviews with refugees, we identified that there were lots of helpful legal and social resources, but they were all very scattered. Despite the abundance of useful tools, many were difficult to find, limiting the amount of help they could provide. The solution we found and implemented is a web tool that provides a centralized location for legal and social assistance to refugees.
Headlines that Help: The Benefits of Positive Journalism and Strategies to Present It
News is presented in many different forms such as newspapers, magazines, websites, and mobile applications. There are many different tones in which articles can portray stories. Some of these include positive, negative, neutral, and constructive. Our project focuses on positive news, specifically, how it is drastically underrepresented and understudied in the current news landscape. The goal of our team is two-fold. First, we will investigate the effects that reading positive news has on individuals. Since there is not much pre-existing data on this subject, we will propose a study that will scientifically measure the effects of stress levels on individuals as they consume more positive news. In addition, we are also working on developing a mobile application that will encourage readers to take in more positive news using psychological habit-forming strategies. The popularity of mobile applications being used for news consumption has substantially increased in recent years, and pivoting to this strategy would help bring positive news into the mainstream market.
Spring 2022
Insect Identification Through Citizen Science
Artificial Light at Night (ALAN), or light pollution, is increasingly prominent in modern society. Many scientists suspect that ALAN is a cause of the decline of the insect population. To understand it further, it is necessary to acquire data on the specific insects attracted to the streetlights. Working with the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB), we created a dichotomous key for insect identification. Using this key, we developed an interactive mobile and desktop application for citizen scientists. We then conducted three rounds of user testing to improve upon the accuracy and efficiency of both the dichotomous key and the applications. Afterwards, we integrated a data entry feature for the professional scientists to digitize and simplify their entry process. Using our applications, the AuBe project at the IGB will be able to identify insect orders much more efficiently, thereby collecting more of the necessary data. This data will enable scientists to conduct a comparative study to test their hypothesis about the relative importance of ALAN to insect health.
Weaving the Digital Fabric Between Newcomers and Locals: Aiding Integration with Start with a Friend
Germany has accepted over one million displaced people since 2015, becoming one of the top countries in the world to do so. Germany has also had an extensive history of immigration, dating back to 1685 with the Edict of Potsdam, allowing French refugees to settle in Berlin. Since then, Germany has continued to improve and add to its immigration policies to help newcomers to the country. Although there are policies that help newcomers, there are also barriers that prevent them from integrating such as discrimination, trauma, and xenophobia. Therefore, non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) are relied on to fill gaps in policy, helping to integrate these newcomers in Germany. Start with a Friend (SwaF) is one of these NGO’s, using its Tandem matching program to build social networks for newcomers among other programs. As of 2022, SwaF has created over 7,800 Tandem pairs. However, its database was built in 2015, when the organization was first founded, and cannot keep up with SwaF’s growing demands as it expands to locations across Germany and Austria. Our team created a prototype of a new database using the Agile framework to iterate based on feedback of our prototype. We worked closely with our sponsor to gain feedback and created an evaluation form to be completed by SwaF employees who create matches after interacting with our prototype. Before creating this prototype, however, we conducted a literature review, collected first-hand accounts of migration, and observed SwaF to learn about SwaF’s operations through the lens of Germany’s history of migration. This was essential to develop solutions that work for both the participants of the program and SwaF’s employees. We then evaluated the current database and determined necessary improvements through workshops that consisted of actual users of the database. This allowed us to create a successful prototype, tailored to the needs of the organization, and helping SwaF in their goal to have a new, improved, and more efficient database. By aiding SwaF’s Tandem matching process, our project will contribute to the overall humanistic effort to integrate newcomers in Germany.
A Deep Dive Into Lake Stechlin: Assessing Climate Change Effects on Stratified Lakes to Generate Educational Material
Freshwater bodies such as rivers, lakes, streams and ponds play a significant role in human and ecological health in various ways. They provide drinking water, food, and they contribute to social well being through fishing, recreation and tourism. Moreover, they help sustain aquatic food chains, and organisms in lakes and other water bodies break down damaging toxins and organic matter that humans flush into sewage systems in the long run. Freshwater bodies also help avert floods, and maintain nutrients and biodiversity which sustains the overall ecosystem. Nonetheless, freshwaters can be vulnerable to effects from climate change since weather patterns heavily influence water temperatures which can affect the population of aquatic organisms. With that, species in different water bodies cannot disperse easily to other aquatic environments as a result of higher water temperatures. Issues related to freshwaters do not receive as much attention as other first order impacts such as rise of atmospheric temperature, so education about this topic becomes important since these water bodies influence the health of other environments which affect people’s health as a whole. Lake Stechlin, in Landkreis Oberhavel, Brandenburg, is a freshwater body of special significance in Germany. It is known for its depth and water quality. Due to subtle changes in its environment, the lake has become an important area for research into issues of water temperature, dissolved oxygen concentrations, and the health of its ecosystems. This project, in collaboration with the IGB-Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, used research conducted by scientists and data analyzed by staff members from LakeLab to create educational material regarding lake processes. The team implemented crucial elements regarding graphic design such as scale, proportion, unity, variety, rhythm, balance, emphasis, gradation, pattern and movement to create educational posters on processes in Lake Stechlin. Ways of integrating data, and cause and effects through environmental education helped the team make complicated processes easier for the audience to understand. Drawing on the data collected by IGB researchers, the team used a programming language to show the changing pattern of temperature, oxygen and chlorophyll throughout the year in a video graphic. These patterns correlate to the educational posters as they portray stratification in the four seasons through time, and the concentration of dissolved oxygen and chlorophyll at different depths. We conclude that the educational material not only expands on the scientific aspects of lake ecosystems, but it integrates the effects of long-term issues such as global warming on the health of Lake Stechlin and other freshwater bodies as a whole.
Investigating Sustainability Efforts of a Zero-Waste Grocery Delivery Service
With its quest for profit and its resistance to regulation, neoliberalism promotes a linear economy that follows a take-make-waste philosophy. Plastic waste in 2015 totaled 275 million tonnes and in 2020 global CO2 emissions reached 34.81 billion tonnes. Businesses that wish to embrace a sustainable model, like the circular economy, need to find ways to develop and demonstrate viability. Our project team worked with Alpakas, a Berlin-based startup that offers zero-waste grocery delivery. We aimed to help prove Alpakas’ sustainability metrics to be effective. By conducting key informant interviews, we identified plastic waste reduction as the central KPI around which we would organize our field work. To identify Alpakas’ ability to reduce plastic waste, we presented our findings through a spreadsheet dashboard tool as well as an infographic. The spreadsheet tool quantifies conventional grocer plastic waste and directly compares it to the Alpakas inventory. To address a second KPI, we researched CO2 emissions of gas and diesel cars and light commercial vehicles. We compared that with the small amount of CO2 that Alpakas e-cargo bikes produce and represented our findings in another section of the dashboard. This section identifies the amount of CO2 saved in transportation by shopping with Alpakas based on distance the distance the customer lives from the warehouse. We created the infographic with the intention of it being displayed on the company’s website so as to explain the benefits of shopping with Alpakas. Ultimately, we found a way for Alpakas to demonstrate its sustainable practices, and exercise ideas of the circular economy.
The Nuances of an SDG Report: Providing Key Recommendations to Freie Universität Berlin for an Ideal SDG Report
Sustainability has become a key factor in determining a university’s appeal, so it is vital for a university to communicate its sustainability leadership to external audiences. To boost awareness of their sustainability practices, universities can use tools such as sustainability reports or a high position in sustainability rankings. The Times Higher Education Impact Rankings, one authoritative source for sustainability ratings, ranks universities according to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These rankings are based on a specific style of sustainability report, known as an SDG report. Our goal was to make recommendations for Freie Universität Berlin’s SDG report, and we accomplished this goal by conducting a content analysis of existing reports. Our analysis found that components of a well-done report include format and organization by sustainability goal, description of projects that apply to the goal, and presentation of statistics in a box separate from the text. In addition to this report, we were also tasked with the project of formulating recommendations for an interactive app. We developed recommendations best suited to the students of Freie Universität Berlin to communicate the university’s sustainability efforts in a way that students will notice and care about. The SDG report recommendations and the interactive app will both assist Freie Universität Berlin communicate its sustainability practices with all current and future students, as well as help them to engage the community in becoming more sustainable.
Spring 2021
A Citizen Science Approach to Measuring Microplastics in Berlin’s Water (Sponsor: IGB/TJP, 2021)
Microplastic and nanoplastic pollution is a continuously growing threat to our environment. The goal of our project was to increase awareness of this risk in elementary students in the Treptow-Köpenick district of Berlin. Through our partnership with Leibniz-IGB and other district affiliates, we developed a lesson plan containing a student experiment, a presentation, infographics, and reflection materials to teach students about the problem. Increasing awareness in younger generations is an important step in hopes of attaining a more sustainable future.
Connecting Über den Tellerrand Amidst the Covid-19 Pandemic: A Technology Based Approach (Sponsor: Über den Tellerrand, 2021)
This project sought to enhance the internal communication and engagement techniques of Über den Tellerrand, a German NGO, during the COVID-19 pandemic. We conducted interviews, focus groups, and a survey to learn about communication and engagement issues as well as best communication practices during the pandemic. Using the collected data, we created communication guidelines to improve online communication at Über den Tellerrand. We recommended the implementation of communication guidelines and further research into engagement techniques at the organization’s other satellites.
Night-Time Light Emission (Sponsor: GFZ, 2021)
The GeoForschungsZentrum, a German research center, developed the app Nachtlichter for people to count and classify lights to better understand light pollution. A tutorial was needed to ensure all participants understood the classifications to collect accurate data. The tutorial was produced by understanding difficulties in classifying, creating a framework and undergoing a cycle of testing, feedback and revisions. The tutorial was tested and proven effective at teaching citizen scientists by reducing confusion as well as increasing confidence and classification accuracy.
Safeguarding the Online Presence of LGBTIQ Refugees (Sponsor: ORAM, 2021)
This project aided the Organization for Refuge, Asylum, and Migration (ORAM), located in Berlin, Germany, in developing safe practices used to sustain a web-based tool that assists LGBTIQ asylum seekers. We proposed changes for ORAM’s web application and produced a guide that ORAM can use to educate refugees and asylum seekers on protecting their digital data. We also conducted interviews with experts in cybersecurity, data storage, or IT to identify security measures and services for ORAM to safely collect and store refugees’ data. ORAM can use these recommendations to serve itself and its clients.
Spring 2020
Designing Diversity into Citizen Science (Sponsor: Studio Austen/IGB, 2020)
Citizen science is being utilized around the world as a tool to involve non-professionals in the scientific process and advance the open science movement. However, it has been observed that there is a lack of demographic diversity within citizen science programs. Our project was designed to help citizen science programs increase demographic diversity within its participants through the use of guidelines and a video. After collecting data through a literature review, interviews, and a public survey, we determined the most prevalent barriers to diversity in citizen science and established methods to reduce or eliminate these barriers. We found that a lack of resources and time commitment are the largest barriers, and a lack of communication between professionals and non-professionals can exacerbate many other barriers to diversity. In addition, an unexpected barrier we found was that many people do not know what citizen science is in the first place. Our findings then informed the creation of our guidelines and video to help program leaders design diversity and inclusion into their citizen science programs. Through these deliverables, our project will give citizen science programs the tools to encourage diversity and align with the main principle of open science, science for all.
Open Source Strategies in Research (Sponsor: IGB, 2020)
Modern research institutions use software both to produce and organize their research, making software skills incredibly useful to researchers. However, many researchers are self-taught, lacking a professional background in software development. Because of this, researchers are often unaware of or lack the time to learn the best practices for publishing work in a well-documented, open source format. This leads to difficult-to-use code being published alongside research, if it is published at all. By helping researchers improve in these areas, software and hardware that accompany research will become easier to reuse and develop. The objective of this project was twofold. First we aimed to gather information from IGB staff relevant to open source methods and software, and raise awareness of best practices for open source at the IGB. This was done through a series of surveys which provided general statistics about the IGB staff relevant to open source methodologies, and interviews with several individuals providing in depth personal experience. Secondly, we researched best practices as well as available software, and based on this along with the data collected from the IGB staff we made policy suggestions to the IGB that we thought would lead to wider adoption of open source methodology and high quality software standards. By raising awareness of and providing a set of guidelines for open source publishing platforms and ideas, we hope to assist researchers to publish high quality work that promotes cooperation and innovation.
Investigating the Sources of Artificial Light Pollution by Utilizing Citizen Science (Sponsor: GFZ, 2020)
Nighttime light pollution is a growing ecological threat that threatens human health, wildlife, energy, and the environment at large. This project worked with the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) to address this issue by bridging a gap between researchers, scientists, and citizens in order to better utilize the concept of citizen science to fight light pollution. The team researched many aspects of the effects of light pollution, defined potential sources, and identified the potential for citizen science to revolutionize data collection within the light pollution research community. Two main issues for citizen scientists were identified as areas to improve: 1.) The motivations and incentives for citizen science participation and 2.) the training and ability for citizen scientists to collect accurate and useful data. In order to better prepare citizen scientists for consistent data collection, the team designed a training material guideline outlining the different light fixtures to note, shielding specifications, and window counting guidelines. The team investigated the motivations and barriers to citizen science, using this data to make recommendations for more effective recruiting. A lighting inventory was created and analyzed for multiple areas in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The information from this experience was then applied to the context of helping other citizen scientists collect similar data. Our project provided useful data and effective training materials to the sponsor organization, preparing them to further grow their research operations in regions across the globe.
Creating Marketing and Promotional Materials for Advocates of Dark Sky Preservation (Sponsor: GFZ, 2020)
Artificial light emissions at night have caused an increase in the phenomenon known as light pollution, where dark skies are illuminated by light sources on the ground. Our team worked with the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) to promote organizations who advocate for the restoration of night skies. Our project consisted of creating marketing and promotional materials for the citizen science endeavor, the Loss of the Night app, and a scholarly journal, the International Journal of Sustainable Lighting (IJSL). Our team combined research and survey analysis to create deliverables to develop a social media plan, tutorial video, and promotional poster for the journal.
Reducing Stigmatization of LGBTQ+ Refugees (Sponsor: ORAM, 2020)
Refugees and asylum-seekers that leave due to sexual orientation or gender identity-related discrimination are an underrepresented minority within the global population of displaced migrants. Their very existence is under threat; due to this vulnerability, their migration has an added layer of complexity and risk of isolation. The goal of this project was to design a web application that connects LGBT+ identifying refugees and asylum-seekers with targeted asylum information, as well as developing a body of well-researched documentation to help in future iterations of the project. Through our research, we’ve identified that communication and security are the two biggest concerns when it comes to providing LGBT+ refugees and asylum-seekers with the assistance and support they need. Communication is an essential service for supporting marginalized populations, with security being the most important consideration when working with vulnerable people’s information on the internet. We decided a web application was the best way to solve the communication issues faced by relief agencies trying to assist this marginalized population. In order to inform our application design as well as provide further context into the usefulness of the app, we’ve surveyed and interviewed refugees/asylum-seekers as well as humanitarian workers respectively to get both essential perspectives. We’ve addressed their feedback by designing an application prototype that streamlined our sponsor’s asylum resources onto one platform, creating a form that allows users to filter and find relief agencies and services closest to them without storing their data, and developing a database to store the information of these resources as well as a tool that would aid our sponsor in adding more entries to the database. We hope this project will help support existing efforts to advocate for the LGBT+ refugee and asylum-seeking population, and provide a framework for streamlining communication and support strategies in the humanitarian sector.
Spring 2019
Make the World a Better Plate (Sponsor: Ueber den Tellerand, 2019)
Our team worked in Berlin, Germany with Über den Tellerrand, a non-profit organization working towards integrating refugees into German society. The need for this organization, amongst others, manifested due to the lack of a federal resettlement programs promoting integration as opposed to assimilation. We created a standardized evaluation tool for the organization to gauge the effectiveness of their “Cooking Class” program with regards to their program goals. To accomplish this, we first conducted interviews with other Berlin-based non-government organizations to gain insight on program evaluation. We then interviewed Über den Tellerrand board members, project managers, and key staff to understand what participant opinions they were focused on discovering using an evaluation tool. Using the data from these objectives and taking inspiration from Über den Tellerrand’s current exit survey, we developed the evaluation tool. After testing multiple iterations of the tool during several Cooking Classes, we collected the results, analyzed the data, and debriefed with our sponsor. Using the data we collected through the completion of our objectives, we were able to create our final deliverable, enabling Über den Tellerrand to continuously evaluate their program.
50 Plates of Program Evaluation (Sponsor: Über den Tellerand, 2019)
We worked with Über den Tellerrand, an organization in Berlin, Germany, to improve their program by evaluating the impact that their community events have on both locals and immigrants. It is important to have methods that can evaluate the success of these events. Understanding the success of the events can help the organization determine if their goals are being met. After speaking with members of the Über den Tellerrand staff, our team has identified three areas that represent the goals for the integration of newcomers: creating a safe encounter space for locals and immigrants to meet, helping locals and immigrants create sustainable friendships, and reducing prejudices. Thus, our team was tasked with developing the necessary evaluation tools to help the organization measure the success in achieving these goals. The evaluation tool we had developed for the Über den Tellerrand community events was a survey instrument. We tested our survey instrument at many of the community events held by Über den Tellerrand during our time in Berlin, and refined them to capture the most important information. We also supplied the organization with methods to analyze and understand the data. Our program evaluation demonstrated that Über den Tellerrand has reduced prejudices amongst its participants, created a safe space for immigrants and locals to interact, and expanded the participants’ support network. In doing so, Über den Tellerrand has brought Germany closer to a becoming a multicultural and inclusive nation.