Studio-based design education can expand beyond the classroom, provide students with experiential learning, engage underserved populations, and serve community needs. Creating opportunities for students to engage with “real world” challenges provides transformative learning experiences. Design pedagogy can address social issues, cultivate cultural sensitivity and practice environmental stewardship through direct experience. Committed to this idea and the desire to foster a sense of social good through design practices and processes, I have developed a series of service-learning courses and engaged with local, and international non-profit organizations and NGOs to introduce my students to social impact design.

-Susan Melsop, Ohio State University

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This video on Social Impact highlights how The Ohio State Department of Design looks to do more than design for the top 1% of the world. As designers, we have the opportunity to leave a positive impact by designing with the people we are designing for, in this case, the street situation people of Sao Paulo.