City Idea Lab

City Idea Lab is a project within TeachingCity Oshawa. TeachingCity Oshawa partners Durham College, Ontario Tech University  and Trent University Durham GTA are grateful for the generous gift of $322,000 from RBC Foundation as part of the RBC Future Launch program, which was presented at the 2018 Fall Student Showcase and will continue to fund the City Idea Lab until the end of the 2020-2021 academic year.

The City Idea Lab is a collaborative, course-based project between the City and its academic partners that will offer experiential learning opportunities to post-secondary students via a credit course at the TeachingCity Hub. Students will work in a lab environment where they will learn about identified urban issues in Oshawa and collaborate with City staff to co-design possible solutions. Students from Durham College, Ontario Tech University and Trent University Durham GTA are participating in City Idea Lab throughout the 2019/2020 school year. Each course focuses on a particular City-identified challenge statement that is then embedded into both teaching practices and academic curriculum.

City Idea Lab resides within the TeachingCity Hub located at 1 Mary Street North in downtown Oshawa. The hub is an open-concept space designed to facilitate TeachingCity projects with the city’s education and research partners, including students, faculty and staff. The hub provides opportunities for TeachingCity partners to share access to facilities, resources and equipment, and offers office, classroom and open lab space; it is currently used for TeachingCity partnership meetings, collaborative learning opportunities and co-design. The TeachingCity Hub officially opened on May 14, 2018.

Graduate and undergraduate level students participate in a City Idea Lab Idea Showcase at the end of their semester to display their project posters that illustrate their active research on their City-identified challenge statement. Some past examples are:

• “How might the City better engage Youth in priority neighbourhoods?” 
• “How might the City of Oshawa eliminate barriers to Oshawa Youth Council participation?”
• “How might the City of Oshawa raise the profile of what the community is doing to address poverty through investigative reporting?”
• “How might the City of Oshawa better engage the community on matters related to sustainability?”
• “How might the City of Oshawa better engage art to tell the stories of Oshawa’s 55+ residents?”
• "How might the City of Oshawa better map its cultural assets?"
• "How might the City of Oshawa design a Wifi Network in the downtown?"

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