The Rob Walton College of Global Futures to advance Principled Innovation in new experiential learning model spanning land, labor, water, soil, energy and community
Janna Goebel, Clinical Assistant Professor and Faculty Lead for Community Engagement, School of Sustainability in the Rob Walton College of Global Futures, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory, is principal investigator on Land, Labor, Water, Soil, Energy and Community, a new $8,000 grant awarded by Rob Walton College of Global Futures Principled Innovation Research and Teaching Grant.
Says Goebel: In Phoenix, the challenges presented by rapid hyperscale data center growth are omnipresent. Communities are actively negotiating what it means to host large-scale infrastructure while facing climate stressors like extreme heat and water scarcity. Meanwhile, employers are seeking graduates who can engage across differences, communicate clearly, and think systemically. This project develops a two-tier experiential learning model, rooted in Principled Innovation, that introduces scalable, partner-engaged learning early and reinforces it through a complex, multi-stakeholder capstone later. Through this experience, students will build applied skills in systems thinking, communication, and ethical decision-making, connecting technical systems to human intent and impact, and critically considering the various needs of interconnected individuals and organizations.
A brief summary follows:
When the world’s largest hyperscale data centers are seeking to site a new project, they consider 5 primary inputs: Land, labor, water, soil, and energy. A sixth input, community, is often superficially included at best, treated like an afterthought, or ignored at worst. Grounded in the Principled Innovation framework, this project repositions communities for co-equal contribution by embedding multi-stakeholder, work-integrated learning (WIL) into the School of Sustainability curriculum. This new learning model--designed to begin earlier in students’ academic journeys, during their first year, and deepen in a capstone experience in their final year--will engage students in structured, partner-connected projects co-designed with corporations, municipalities, and community organizations as they develop habits for practicing Principled Innovation to address competing values and interests and make values-based decisions in realistic contexts of interrelated stakeholders.
Goebel offers the following acknowledgments:
The Rob Walton College of Global Futures and ASU Office of University Affairs.