LFAS: Make a Change 2024

“For the past few years, the grade 7’s at Langley Fine Arts have taken part in a Make-a-Change project. The goal of this project is for students to identify a need in their school, the lower mainland, or anywhere in the world, and learn more about how they can help out. Student topics fall within the categories of environmental or human rights concerns, and as part of the project, the students decide an action they would like to take, whether through raising awareness, fundraising for a cause, or working practically to help solve the issue. The grade 7’s have partnered with numerous organizations in the Lower Mainland in recent years and we look forward to continue this tradition in the years to come.” - Travis Vanderberg, Teacher and creator of the Make-A-Change project.

Thaumazo Director Daniel Lindenberger attended several class sessions which included:

• An introduction to Thaumazo and the UN Sustainable Development Goals
• Conversations with each student team about their project ideas, goals
• “Drop In” sessions where students could discuss anything they wanted about their projects.
• For teams where all students approved, we recorded team interviews to generate transcripts that we could use with GPT

We then provided the project Teachers a private Notion page to help facilitate each team’s project, including:
• Project Description
• Related SDGs
• A list of potential partners / sponsors
• Key points, follow up questions, action items and counter-arguments regarding the project
In one case a team had us use GPT to help generate an introductory letter and other materials to help them market their project.

——

In 2024, we expanded our role in supporting ideation and implementation around projects, attracting attention to the project teams and projects devised, and fostering more relationships with partner organizations for the student teams.