SPEECH

ALS 165 Listening and Speaking STEM Winter 2021

Smart Cities Project

What is a Smart City?

As the global population continues to grow at a steady pace, more and more people are moving to cities every single day.

Experts predict the world’s urban population will double by 2050 – which means we’re adding the equivalent of seven New York Cities to the planet every single year. As our planet becomes more urban, our cities need to get smarter. To handle this large-scale urbanization, we’ll need to find new ways to manage complexity, increase efficiency, reduce expenses, and improve quality of life.

With this rapid growth ahead of us, imagine if our cities could talk—if they could give us live status updates on traffic patterns, pollution, parking spaces, water, power and light. Imagine how that kind of information could improve the economic and environmental health of the city for residents, merchants, and visitors. Imagine how it could improve working conditions and productivity for the people who maintain the city.

Emerging technologies are poised to reshape our urban environments. Using ultra-low power sensors, wireless networks, and web and mobile-based applications, Smart Cities are becoming a reality. (Source: http://www.streetline.com/smart-cities/)

Assignment Guidelines

· Identify a characteristic of any city that is in need of becoming “Smart” or innovated to become more sustainable and efficient. You can choose any city that you would like and/or are familiar with.

· You can choose from the following characteristics:

· Transportation/Efficient Urban Mobility

· Energy Management

· Storm and rain water harvesting

· Urban development/Efficiency of Buildings

· Water Supply

· Sanitation

Step 1) Prepare and Research

· Choose a city. Look at the characteristics of a Smart City. With your group, decide on one characteristic that you want to focus on specifically for the city that you chose.

· Individually, research innovations for this characteristic. Research the current practices of how your city is doing things. Then, research the feasibility in which you can change the current city’s infrastructure to the new infrastructure with your innovation.

· Prepare several suggestions to bring to the planning/brainstorming meeting.

Step 2) Brainstorm Meeting

· Your group will have a graded planning/brainstorming meeting in Week 7

· Come to the meeting and discuss your ideas for innovating your chosen city. Decide on which ideas would be the best fit for the city.

· Make initial plans for developing your group presentation and establish an action plan to implement following the meeting. (See Planning Meeting Rubric)

Step 3) Out of class meeting(s)

· Your group will meet out of class as needed to prepare for the presentation.

Step 4) Presentation

· Your group will give a 25-minute (approximately) presentation outlining your action plan.

· Each member of the group will present on a different aspect of the plan.

· Each member of the group should speak for 5-6 minutes.

· Each member of the group is responsible for including at least 2 academic sources which are properly cited (in-text and orally) and referenced using APA guidelines.

· Each group should create a power point presentation to assist the audience in understanding their ideas.

· The group should also be prepared to answer questions from the audience.

Presentation Outline

· Introduction (2 mins)

· Individual Presentations (5-6 mins, each)

· Conclusion (2 mins)

· Questions (5 mins)

Presentation Timeline

· Planning Meetings: DUE WEEK 7

· Presentation: WEEK 10