Imagination and Futures Thinking for K12

Future focused research question

How can we best prepare youth to think critically about and take agency for their futures?

Description

Why does every school teach history but hardly any have courses on the future? This project seeks to establish a working group around futures thinking and foresight in K-12 education with an aim of building community and developing an interdisciplinary program of research.

Year 1 achievements:

• NSF AISL proposal involving 5 LFC faculty submitted January 2023
• AERA Workshop/conference proposal involving 5 LFC faculty submitted March 2023
• Initiating a collaborative relationship with the Guadalupe community to co-create an intergenerational community futures project
• Futures games infrastructure project initiated – planning for pilot implementation summer 2023 with graduate student support

Readings discussed in LFC ‘Journal Club’

Gidley, J. M. (2017). The future: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press. (Amazon)

Pendleton-Jullian, A., & Brown, J. S. (2016). Pragmatic imagination. (Amazon)

Harjo, L. (2019). Spiral to the stars: Mvskoke tools of futurity. University of Arizona Press. (Link)