• to provide a career mentoring opportunity for high school juniors
• to increase awareness about our built environment. Through exposure to the collective decision-making process and by exposing students to varied perspectives of the team, to make them aware of the contribution opportunities and responsibilities available to anyone well educated enough to ask questions.
• to provide a discussion forum for students to explore the range of issues that influence the process of creating the physical environment.
• to create a vehicle to illuminate the process of creating a project of significant value to the community.

Our program promotes intellectual investigation in the arena of the built environment as a vehicle for understanding of and growth in the community. This is a long-term project, the results of which will be seen over time. In addition to the development of local knowledge now, the expectation is that the skills developed in decision-making capable of leading development in the future will be manifest 20 years from now. Short-term goals include development and expansion of a local knowledge base in areas such as diversity, sustainability, cultural vernacular design, and commitment. Aside from the direct benefits derived from a study in sustainable design in San Francisco as criteria for current decision and planning agendas, this study can become a catalyst, or vehicle, for other community issues.

The proposed San Francisco program will involve a small group of students in San Francisco high schools in a year-long program that will provide students who are at risk of dropping out of school with the skills they need to excel in the modern workplace as well as in institutions of higher learning. The skills include the abilities to communicate and understand ideas and information, collect, analyze, and organize information, identify and solve problems, understand and work within complex systems, use mathematical ideas and techniques, use technology; initiate and complete entire activities, act professionally; interact with others, learn on an ongoing basis, and take responsibility for career and life choices.

During the academic year, the students will establish a learning community and jointly explore issues of the San Francisco community. They will experience the learning habits needed for the discovery, integration, application, and sharing of knowledge over a lifetime.

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