Blog Post #1

CODES

(Picture taken by Gregory Finley)

I am blogging about my scholarship program, CODES. As well as what we do as students in the program. CODES stands for Community-Oriented Digital Engagement Scholars, “In CODES, you’ll practice creative problem solving and learn new technical skills like mapping, data visualization and communicating online.”( www.siue.edu/diversity/codes/). 

For each course we take, we create a page to store all our major assignments, artifacts, and reflections. For each course students create a grading contract. We have to add goals from learning objectives, then provide evidence at the end to make sure that those goals are met to receive our ideal grade.

MOBOT(Missouri Botanical Garden) has a deep history of slavery. This history of slavery impacts the St. Louis community. SIUE acquired funding, through the CODES program, to address systemic issues within the st. Louis area. I was selected as one of 25 students to incorporate this information in a way that the public would pay respects to, as well as represent the enslaved people appropriately. 

My role was to develop a plan, with a team, to allow visitors and locals to be informed of MOBOTs history. In our team, we established an educational program for the public by creating a PDF lesson plan that can be accessed online, digitally, and in paper form without having to utilize a cellular device.