EDUCATORS
DiscoverDesign is a free web-based learning tool for teens created by the Chicago Architecture Foundation. It empowers teens to gain architectural skills, learn green design principles, engage in problem solving, and connect to an online community of their peers, their teachers and design professionals around the world.
It’s ideal for use in Career and Tech Ed classes and Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) courses. Educators in art and science also find DiscoverDesign to be rigorous and relevant for their cross-disciplinary project-based learning.
DiscoverDesign supports 21st Century skills – creativity, critical thinking, communication, collaboration – using new media and promoting technological literacy. Case studies explore award-winning green schools around the country and include interactive instructional materials – videos, slideshows, guided questions, architectural construction drawings, interviews with architects, digital models.
Teens choose real-world design challenges posted on DiscoverDesign and throughout the design process, they post their original photos, images of Google SketchUp models, fly-through animations, architectural drawings (AutoCAD DWF files), videos and text.
Have an idea for a new design problem for your students? Let us know! Together we can develop the design brief. We'll post it so any student or teacher can use it.
If you’re already connected to architects and engineers in your own community, they can create free accounts and begin volunteering as online mentors to provide feedback on the various stages of your students’ design projects in the Student Gallery.
We also encourage you to reach out to your local chapters of the American Institute of Architects, the American Society of Structural Engineers, or the ACE Mentor Program to identify potential mentors. Or, you can contact us at the Chicago Architecture Foundation and we can help get the word out about you and your students.
Important!
After you create a new account, please let us know. Contact us here and we’ll verify your educator status and grant you special access to several classroom-friendly features on DiscoverDesign.
If you have any questions about safety and privacy on DiscoverDesign, learn more about how we've protected students' identity. Only anonymous usernames and cities are displayed and students' full names and school names are never shown.
Questions about using DiscoverDesign in your classroom?
Just ask Jen Masengarb, CAF's Senior Manager of Educational Research
312.922.3432 x246
ARCHITECTS, ENGINEERS and DESIGN PROFESSIONALS
If you’re looking to make a true impact on the lives of teens in your community and around the world, we hope you’ll consider volunteering as an online mentor to provide feedback on the various stages of students’ design projects posted on DiscoverDesign.
Or, reach out to the architecture or drafting teacher at your local high school and let them know about DiscoverDesign. Or comment on any project posted in the Student Gallery. After you create a user account, you're ready to go!
Questions about mentoring?
Just ask Jen Masengarb, CAF's Senior Manager of Educational Research
312.922.3432 x246