As a Greening Education Partner, our nonprofit works to engage youth voice and participation in building a more just and equitable world. We offer k12 workshops and teacher professional development to integrate the natural and built worlds integrating siloed subjects. Imagination knows no cred, race, color, ethnicity. It just needs opportunity. NEXT.cc is a free eco web resource that introduces the eco systems of nature, and the ways the built environment and be more generative and sustainable. TOOLS/LANGAUGE//DISCOVERYand DESIGN Opportunities sencouraging student interest and student led inquiry into the world in which they live.

Eco Design connects the experience of navigating life, walking inside and outside, through spaces, places, and environments. Each day we experience times of activity and inactivity, times of noise, and times of silence. We know times of solitude, introversion, isolation, yet times of togetherness, empathy, and community. We may know about the past or the present of a place. This semester we will explore spaces from wherever we are unpacking our senses and deepening our awareness and understanding of what our role is as artists and designers in the world in which we are living. We will become aware of how our health and the health of our cities are intertwined with human evolution and changing climate.

As Chair of the AIADO Design Department and Chair of the Design Initiative, I collaborated on new interdisciplinary Master of Architecture and Master of Architecture with emphasis in Interior Architecture programs, developed an undergraduate architecture pathway and Bachelor of Interior Architecture degree.

I work on developing water stewardship across communities offering Eco Cruises on the River and on Lake Michigan coupled with Water Workshops for K12 students, teachers, and parents. Water is life, and second only to air as a necessity. Humans have used water unknowingly polluting it, diverting it and attempting to control it. Healthy water is key to healthy cities. Chicago and Milwaukee are charged with global freshwater stewardship, and while many organizations are working to improve the health of the rivers and to steward water use of the Great Lakes, much more needs to be done to raise awareness and participation.

NEXT.cc introduces what design is, what design does, and why design is important. It offers activities across nine scales- nano, pattern, object, space, architecture, neighborhood, urban, region, and world. NEXT.cc’s 350+ journeys integrate over 5000 museums, institutions, and contemporary practices. NEXT.cc reaches young people, their teachers, and their families with meaningful learning experiences that create positive influence on lives. NEXT.cc is accessed in 52 states and over 150 countries supporting informal learning and design as a way of seeing, learning and interacting with the world. STEM to STEAM TeachingEnvironmental EducationBuilt Environment EducationDesign LearningPlace Based Project LearningSystems Thinking21st Century Teaching and LearningKeynotesProfessional Development WorkshopsNEXT.cc is a collaborative effort by principals, teachers, architects, artists and college art, art education, design and architecture students (MIT, Harvard, NJIT, CCAC, Parsons, SAIC, UWM) . Founded as an educational non-profit in 2007, NEXT.cc researches and creates trans disciplinary journeys that engage local ideas with global practices. Participants move from the computer into the community and learn about themselves, their neighbors, and friends as they engage history and culture of place and explore sustainable design possibilities. NEXT.cc is partnered with Ace Mentors, Burnham 100, Chicago Public Schools ASM, Detroit Public Schools, Earth Day Network, LaCrosse Design Institute, National Environmental Education Foundation,Industrial Design Society of America, US Green Charter Schools, RISD's STEM to STEAM Project, The Salvadori Center, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Smithsonian, Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, Harvard Career Links Project, FutureLab’s InfoCow, UIA’s Architecture and Children Program, and the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. Design As Nature Workshops have reached over 5000 teachers and 25,000 students.

STUDIO 1032 is a multi-disciplinary firm founded in 1987 and located in Milwaukee and Chicago that works with a variety of communities to conceptualize identity, interactivity, architectural and environmental challenges. Partners Mark and Linda Keane engage and learn from diverse audiences and collaborate with interdisciplinary teams to initiate new urban ecologies that synergize destinations as social incubators.STUDIO 1032’s portfolio includes environmental, educational, political, and entertaining projects, constructed and proposed. As professors of architecture and environmental design and early animators, the Keanes approach every project from a fresh perspective visualizing new and critical relationships between built and natural worlds. Committed and passionate about working in post industrial cities, the Keanes research and present opportunities for new cultural landscapes. The Joy of Design, a Monograph of STUDIO 1032. UWM 2013

Keane presented at the Internet of Things For Children contributing expertise in bridging between informal and formal education to reach greater populations with access to information, learning and knowledge. The Internet of Things For Children aims to 1. Raise the awareness of parents, teachers, educators and wide professional public raise awareness of the need for interfaces to the younger generations for access to learning. 2. Create and connect for children a larger network of experts and professionals through online platforms, both web (like http://www.NEXT.cc) and apps, that support teachers/educators and children. 3. Create alternative educational methods of education by gathering experts from the field to talk to educators and teachers. Each part of the initiative has its own outcome. Preparing kids and parents, but also teachers and educators to accept new approach on the usage of Internet, we are preparing the base for the stable structure of improvement of formal education. http://theinternetofthings.eu/

Keane, AIA, is now a member of the Project for Public Space National Placemaking Leadership Council. The Council meets to develop strategies for systemic change in cities.

Keane, AIA, serves as a member of the Metropolitan Place Making Advisory Board working with community members to strategize annual place making competitions in Chicago. As part of this service, NEXT.cc developed Placemaking (http://www.next.cc/journey/tools/placemaking), Place Description (http://www.next.cc/journey/language/place-exploration), Place Experience (http://www.next.cc/journey/discovery/place-experience), Public Space (http://www.next.cc/journey/discovery/public-space), Pocket Parks(http://www.next.cc/journey/language/pocket-parks), Streets(http://www.next.cc/journey/language/streets) and other Journeys on NEXT.cc (www.NEXT.cc).

21ST CENTURY LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS BLUR THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN FUN, PLAY, WONDER AND INFORMATION ACCESSMelding examples from museums, schools, hospitals and public gardens, this committee researches multi sensory environments that are tuned to contemporary cultural sustainability. Webinars showcase best practices that shift learning from secondary to primary sources, show case multi sensory experiential out door environments, connect institutional grounds (and roofs!) to local communities, demonstrate educational wayfinding, environmental navigation and encourage landscapes for all learning styles and ages.

Learning from other cultures and living in other cities offers diverse solutions to contemporary urbanism. My research focuses on alternative learning environments. Working with UWM students, we investigate contemporary urban experience studying historical and contemporary objects, spaces, buildings, parks and public interstitial spaces.