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We’re so excited to announce our first pilot course for this summer, structured as a youth participatory action research project with the goal of investigating the environmental and social impact of data center construction in Illinois, including the construction of the Illinois Quantum & Microelectronics Park on the South Side of Chicago. Students will research the objectives of Big Tech corporations and the proliferation of large data centers, including connections to surveillance technology and the military industrial complex.
Through narratives, data, art, and other forms of documentation, students will critique the development and proliferation of Large Language Model (AI) technology and data centers as a capitalist, colonialist, and imperialist enterprise, and critically examine the devastating effects on people and places deemed expendable by the U.S. government and those in power. Essential questions in our work:
What are the ethical responsibilities of scientists and engineers in relation to technological innovation?
How do communities heal after being harmed?
Who is harmed and who benefits?
How can we take action to disrupt and dismantle white supremacist frameworks, exploitative practices, and extractivist principles in science and tech?
How is science and tech used to further extractivist projects of imperialism and settler colonialism?
We will examine the manufactured energy crisis caused by data centers, as well as the devastating impact data centers have on the ecosystems surrounding them, especially in Black, Latine, and Indigenous communities. Students will have an opportunity to meet with activists and legislators who are currently working on this environmental justice issue. Most importantly, students will develop their own community organizing strategies and actions that integrate the science/STEM, art, and communications/writing skills they’ve learned throughout the course.
Session Structure
Greeting/Community Check-in
Focus Question and Opening Activity
Mini-lesson and Practice/Work time
Break
Discussion/Share/Analysis and Additional Work Time
Closing Check-in and Next Steps
WEEK 1: Defining the Problem
Discussing and unpacking our course essential questions
Learning research/documentation strategies and researching the issue through case studies, testimony, and data analysis
Uncovering who is benefitting/profiting from AI/Data Center proliferation, who is behind this and what are their objectives?
Mini-Project: Designing informational resources (infographics, social media posts, longer form writing) to raise awareness
WEEK 2: How Do We Resist?
Inquiry about resistance techniques/strategies based on activist and community resistance stories in Illinois and across the U.S.
Power mapping stakeholders and decision makers, and digging further into “following the money”
Learning directly from current community organizers against Chicago’s Quantum Campus, and hear from legislators who are trying to