Assignments

Final Project - The Connected History

"Ideas don't come from people, ideas come from conversations."

The final project consists of two parts, the project itself and a presentation.

For this project, students are asked to map a historical social network and explore how it formed or shaped ideas. This can be approached from looking at a historical social network (e.g. the Vienna Circle), picking an event (e.g. the Chicago World's Fair — see student sample below), picking a project (e.g. the Manhattan Project - see student sample below), or an idea or movement (e.g. racial integration or the civil rights movement.) These are not the only way to approach the project, merely several ideas.

Examples

Scientific Networks and the Bomb: An Analysis of the Manhattan Project Scientific Network - MIT Students (PDF) (Courtesy of Brad Cunningham and MIT Student. Used with permission.)

The Data for Scientific Networks and the Bomb (XLS) (Courtesy of Brad Cunningham and MIT Student. Used with permission.)

The Chicago World's Fair - MIT Students (PDF) (Courtesy of David Lee, Xiaoji Chen, and Jennifer Dunnam. Used with permission.)

The visualizations for The Chicago World's Fair (PDF) (Courtesy of David Lee, Xiaoji Chen, and Jennifer Dunnam. Used with permission.)