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Alongside the customary challenges of MIT courses, Terrascope Subject 2.00C/1.016/EC.746 (Design for Complex Environmental Issues) presents some distinctive obstacles for learners to navigate: collaborating across time zones, bridging diverse cultural and institutional experiences, and attempting to execute hands-on tasks over Zoom. This is due to the class comprising students not only from MIT but also from Diné College in Tsaile, Arizona, within the Navajo Nation, and the University of Puerto Rico-Ponce (UPRP).
Despite being separated by thousands of miles, teams of students address a real-world challenge for a client, guided by the Terrascope theme for the academic year. “Grasping how to work together remotely with individuals who differ from themselves will be an essential competency for many of these students in the future, sometimes as much as — or more than — any specific design methodology,” asserts Ari Epstein, the Terrascope associate director and senior lecturer. In recent years, Epstein has co-taught the course with Joel Grimm of MIT Beaver Works and Libby Hsu of MIT D-Lab, alongside instructors from the two partner institutions. Undergraduate teaching fellows from all three colleges also play crucial roles in the teaching team.
Since the collaboration commenced three years ago (initially with Diné College, and later incorporating UPRP two years ago), the class themes have covered food security and sustainable agriculture in the Navajo Nation; access to reliable electrical power in Puerto Rico; and this year, enhancing museum visitors’ interaction with artworks that portray mining and landscape modifications in Nevada.
Each group — which consists of students from all three colleges — connects with clients online at the beginning of the term to grasp their requirements; then, through a continual process, teams focus on developing prototypes. During MIT’s spring break, groups travel to meet clients on-site to receive feedback and further refine their prototypes. At the conclusion of the term, students showcase their final products to clients, an expert panel, and their communities at a hybrid exhibition event occurring simultaneously on all three campuses.
Free-range design engineering
“I genuinely enjoyed the course,” remarks Graciela Leon, a second-year mechanical engineering student who participated in the subject in 2024. “It was entirely different from what I anticipated,” she continues. While the learning objectives listed in the syllabus are quite conventional — incorporating an iterative engineering design process, cultivating teamwork abilities, and enhancing communication skills, among others — the method is not. “Terrascope is essentially like throwing you into a real-world dilemma … it feels much more like you are being entrusted with this authentic challenge,” Leon explains.
The 2024 challenge involved discovering ways to assist Puerto Rican senior citizens in activating gasoline-powered generators when the electrical power grid fails; many of them struggle with the pull cords needed to start the generators. The students were assigned to devise solutions for simplifying the process of starting these generators.
Terrascope instructors impart fundamental skills such as iterative design cycles and scrum workflow methods but also grant students considerable autonomy to pursue their ideas. Leon confesses she felt somewhat overwhelmed initially, as she was uncertain about her tasks. “I wanted to create things and thought, ‘Wow, I have to fulfill all these other requirements, I need to draft a client profile and comprehend my client’s needs.’ I was just thinking, ‘Hand me a drill! I want to design something!’”
When he enrolled in the class last year, Uziel Rodriguez-Andujar also found the level of independence teams had to be somewhat disorienting. Now a second-year UPRP student majoring in mechanical engineering, he’s familiar with traditional lecture-based environments. “What I found intriguing was the teaching style, which is, ‘You create your own project, and we expect you to find a solution. Its appearance and execution — that’s entirely your responsibility,’” he explains.
Clearing hurdles
Teaching the course across three different campuses presents several challenges for both students and instructors to surmount — including navigating three different time zones, overcoming language barriers, adapting to various cultural and institutional norms, ensuring effective communication, and designing as well as constructing prototypes over Zoom.
“The cultural divide is vast,” notes Epstein. “There are various communication styles, different ways of listening, and each organization utilizes different resources.”
First-year MIT student EJ Rodriguez discovered that one of the primary challenges was conveying ideas to teammates clearly. He took the course this year, with a theme focused on the environmental consequences of lithium mining. The client, the Nevada Museum of Art, sought innovative methods to engage visitors with its artwork collection related to mining-related landscape transformations.
Rodriguez and his team devised a pendulum with an attached light that illuminates a painting by a Native American artist. When the pendulum swings, it alters how the visitor experiences the artwork. The team constructed parts for the pendulum at different campuses, only to find their components were incompatible. “We had differing visions for the project and utilized different terminology to express our ideas. Occasionally, there would be a misunderstanding … It required significant honesty from each campus to communicate, ‘OK, I thought we were doing exactly this,’ while remaining respectful,” he recounts.
Students from Diné College and UPRP often encounter an initial obstacle that their MIT peers might not. Epstein comments, “Some individuals outside MIT often perceive MIT students as these exceptional individuals who seem out of place in the same setting.” However, the other students quickly recognize that they can compete intellectually, and their backgrounds and experiences are immensely valued. “Their life experiences actually position them ahead of many MIT students in certain aspects, particularly when considering design and fabrication, such as repairing agricultural machinery or rebuilding transmissions,” he adds.
This sentiment resonated with Cauy Bia when he participated in the class in 2024. Currently a first-year graduate student in biology at Diné College, Bia pondered whether he would measure up to the MIT students. “I grew up on a farm, engaging in extensive building, complex calculations, and hands-on tasks. Yet, entering this environment, I had some serious doubts [pondering], ‘Am I intelligent enough to collaborate with these students?’ But ultimately, that was never an issue,” he states.
The significance of reflection
Every two weeks, Terrascope students compose personal reflections on their experiences in the class, which aids them in recognizing their academic and personal growth. “I truly felt that I underwent a process that contributed to my development as an engineer,” shares Leon. “I grasped the significance of interpersonal relationships within engineering, including teamwork, client interaction, and shifting the project perspective away from what I wished to create and design.”
When Bia commenced the semester, he describes himself as more of a “make-or-break-type person” who saw things in binary terms. “But working across all three campuses broadened my thought process, allowing me to consider more ideas, diverse voices, and opinions. I could gain a wider perspective and gather larger concepts from that standpoint,” he expresses. It was also a culturally enriching experience for him, especially “drawing connections between Navajo history, Navajo culture, and observing the similarities between that and Puerto Rican culture, realizing how closely aligned we are as two nations.”
Rodriguez-Andujar developed a deeper understanding of the “constant tension between simplicity and complexity” in engineering. “You have engineers attempting to over-engineer everything,” he remarks. “And post-client feedback [midway through the semester], it often turns out, ‘Oh, that isn’t suitable for me. I’m sorry — you need to simplify it a hundred times and make it far more straightforward.’”
For instructors, the students’ reflections are immensely valuable as they aim to enhance the course each year. In many respects, one could argue that the class embodies an iterative design cycle itself. “The last three years have indeed functioned as prototypes,” Epstein states, “and all the instructional staff are eager to continue fostering these remarkable partnerships.”
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