Two students from the College of Letters & Science are among four University of Wisconsin-Madison undergraduates to receive Wisconsin Open Education Community Fellowships (WOECF) as part of a new program to foster innovative projects across the state.
The program challenged students to develop projects that could solve an issue in their Wisconsin hometown. The projects had to be designed around the content provided in one of three free massive online open courses (MOOCs) offered by UW-Madison's Division of Continuing Studies this year.
Freshman English major Laura Schmitt will help foster an appreciation for literature and creative writing among middle and high school students in the Green Bay area. Working with Mosaic Arts Inc., Schmitt will encourage students to write prose, poetry or essays on a variety of topics as they relate to the work of William Shakespeare. Students will be encouraged to write in whatever form is most meaningful for them, including self-reflection.
Schmitt will collaborate throughout the summer with a variety of media outlets to promote participants' work. Mosaic Arts has already agreed to continue this project beyond summer 2015. The project will be advised by faculty associate Kevin Mullen from the Division of Continuing Studies.
Freshman Andrew Strother, a political science major, has designed a project to build on his work as a member of the Kenosha County Green Ribbon Committee, organized to design a newly acquired park to be a sustainable space where local residents can enjoy and learn about their natural environment.
Strother will design an outreach campaign to encourage families, schools, churches and youth groups to take advantage of the new park. A central element of this campaign will be a series of hands-on workshops for residents of all ages to learn about nature while enjoying the park. Activities will include a fishing clinic, lessons on responsible outdoor recreation, and a DNR workshop on how to sustain local wildlife populations. The project will be advised by Lt. Col. Gregory Goar, commander, Air Force ROTC Detachment 925.
WOECF is a collaboration of the Division of Continuing Studies, Educational Innovation and the Morgridge Center for Public Service at UW-Madison.
Each student will receive a $3,000 stipend and up to $1,000 for project expenses. Community partners and mentors will also receive $1,000 for participating in the fellowship.
To read more about the other WOECF projects, visit the Morgridge Center for Public Service's website.