Building Changemakers
A Workshop on Youth Engagement with Municipal Data
Cities rely on policies, infrastructure, and technology to tackle their challenges, yet often overlook one of their strongest long-term assets—young people. Traditional education rarely connects to youths’ lived realities, leaving them disengaged from their communities. What if we could bridge this gap by involving youth directly with authentic city data?
Partnering with YouthBuild in Salem’s El Punto neighborhood, this project guided students aged 16–20 through visualizations, facilitated discussions, and hands-on activities, translating abstract municipal data on energy, waste, and transit into tangible experiences. By physically representing local data, students were supported in developing a deeper understanding of municipal systems and a greater connection to community issues. Their reflections and artifact-building processes revealed how tactile and place-based approaches helped them explore the relevance of local information in new ways.
Grounded in experiential learning and thoughtful information design, this approach aimed to equip youth with the skills, confidence, and perspectives to become future changemakers within their communities.
Workshop Participants Engaged in a Data Physicalization Project
From Local Challenges to Youth Engagement
What Worked Well?
Multimodal Activities Supported Engagement:
The combination of visualizations, discussion, and hands-on building kept students involved across different learning modes and helped them connect abstract concepts to real experiences.
Tactile Creation Helped Focus Attention:
Material exploration prompted students to interpret and represent data creatively, turning raw numbers into something they could shape and understand.
Peer Dynamics Encouraged Participation:
Students who were initially unsure became more active after observing peers take initiative, highlighting how social influence and collaboration supported growing confidence.
Community Context Increased Relevance:
Students shared personal stories and reflected on local sustainability issues as they worked, linking the data to their lives and neighborhood realities.
Visual Formats Made Data Approachable:
Presenting municipal data in color-coded and spatial layouts helped students quickly make sense of complex topics.
Future Design Considerations
Design for Extended Timeframes:
Allocate more time in future workshops to support deeper exploration, reflection, and completion of data artifacts.
Design Feedback to Happen Immediately:
Collect post-workshop feedback while experiences are still fresh to improve clarity and evaluation accuracy.
Design Activities for Varying Data Literacy Levels:
Adjust scaffolding and complexity to support participation across a wide range of familiarity with data.
Design Municipal Partnerships with Clarity:
Some departments may be hesitant to share public data without a clear understanding of the project’s purpose. Early communication and alignment on goals can improve responsiveness and access.
Design for Public Display and Visibility:
Include an opportunity for students to share their work through exhibitions or community displays to extend engagement beyond the workshop.
