Spokes sends a team of 8 MIT students on a cross-country bike ride starting on the steps
of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. and ending at the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
Over the course of 80 days, our team will bike over 4,000 miles and host Learning Festivals in small
towns and correctional facilities. We create curriculums that complement each host's curriculum inspired
by MIT's hands-on approach to education. We teach these workshops to schools, libraries, and summer camps
all across the United States. We establish strong connections with communities, students, and host families
along the way. We document our experiences. We sweat (a lot). We become a family.
Two curriculum workshops for our learning festival, Krispie Koncrete and Sustainable Manufacturing,
are sponsored by the Jameel World Education Lab Innovation Grant and MIT Open Learning, with the support of Professor J. Kim Vandiver.
Krispie Koncrete leads students through the story of concrete, touching on its history, chemical makeup, importance, and future.
Students engage in hands-on activities to understand concrete chemistry, see concrete being made, and be able
to recreate one of the key chemical reactions that leads to more sustainable concrete. Concrete is one of the most
prevalent materials and is essential in our industrial world. Concrete is the second most used substance in our world
(besides water), and contributes to approximately 8% of global CO2 emissions.
Sustainable Manufacturing leads students to understand the environmental impact of conventional materials
versus sustainable alternatives. The course leads students through the principles of additive manufacturing including
infill, supports, and slicing. Students then develop practical skills by working with computer-aided design tools and
importing to a 3D printer. Studenta anlyze the properties of sustainable materials and evaluate their suitability for
various applications.
Both workshops are open source and were run in a 2-week workshop at MIT in parallel to the Spokes' learning festivals.
They are part of a longitudinal study on community-based learning festivals and open, portable toolkits.
Learning Festivals:
Washington,DC
Hazard,KY
Bowling Green,KY
Newton,KS
Gunnison,CO
Fallon,NV
Lake Tahoe,CA
