The Liberal Arts Action Lab has enrolled 24 students from Capital Community College and Trinity College for Fall 2018. All students will meet together in the Action Research Methods course on Monday afternoons, and also will participate on one of the four Hartford research project teams below:

Food Stories Project
Students will learn about the state-specific policies that shape our food system, and complete a digital storytelling project that uses personal narratives – “food stories” – to illustrate the importance of the policies that shape how and what we eat.
Day and time: Tuesday afternoons, 1:30-4:10pm
Community Partner: Meg Hourigan, Connecticut Food System Alliance
Faculty Fellow: Sarah Moon (University of Connecticut)

Opportunity Youth Project
In Hartford, there are 6,000 youth between the ages of 16-24 who are neither in school nor working. In this project students will learn about the many agencies that serve these youth and work to develop a comprehensive data repository including data from 15-20 organizations that currently do not report data to the Hartford Opportunity Youth Collaborative. In addition to collecting and analyzing data,  students will design a survey to find out how the data can be useful to the many organizations that work with these youth.
Day and time: Wednesday afternoons, 1:15-3:55pm
Community Partner: Julie Geyer, Capital Workforce Partners
Faculty Fellow: Alyson Spurgas (Trinity)

Home Ownership Project
The homeownership rate in Hartford hovers around 23%. Many low-income Hartford residents, especially people of color, have difficulty accessing financing that would allow them to build equity through real estate investment. Students will research the programs that currently exist to encourage home ownership in the city, and investigate the real estate financing landscape to determine what gaps exist, in order to answer the question: How do we develop tools to build equity in real estate for low wage earners in Hartford, specifically people of color?
Day and time: Wednesday evenings, 6:30-9:10pm
Community Partner: Jeff Devereux, Breakfast Lunch & Dinner
Faculty Fellow: Jack Dougherty (Trinity)

Sustainable Foods Project
The Hartford Office of Sustainability is interested in promoting local food to Hartford residents. In this project, students would learn about local food sources and compare the carbon emissions and costs associated with local vs. non-local food. Students will create an index of local food sources and create marketing materials that promote local foods to residents.
Day and time: Thursday afternoons, 1:30-4:10pm
Community Partner: Shubhada Kambli, Office of Sustainability, City of Hartford
Faculty Fellow: Christoph Geiss (Trinity)

Contact Action Lab Director Megan Brown for questions, or to learn to how to apply in September-October 2018 for the next round of Action Lab projects in Spring 2019.

Photo by Andrew Concatelli, Trinity College

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