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Students in Appalachia have a heritage of problem-solving. We explore how computational thinking (CT) relates to and complements this heritage by analyzing 34 local ingenuity stories, and perspectives from 35 community members about the relevance of CT. We found the two problem-solving approaches are meaningfully different, but can be used in concert. Since equating them could contribute to confusion and cultural erasure, researchers and educators bringing CT as a problem solving strategy into rural and other resourceful cultures must clarify what they mean by “CT helps problem solving.” In these cultures, CT skills are better introduced as new tools to expand students’ problem-solving toolkits, rather than tools that are identical to or better than those traditionally used in their culture.
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Fig Leaves, Pipe Dreams, and Myopia: Too-Easy Solutions in Environmental Law
Much of environmental law and policy rests on an unspoken premise that accomplishing environmental goals may not require addressing root causes of environmental problems. For example, rather than regulating risks directly, society may adopt warnings that merely avoid risk, and rather than limiting plastic use and reducing plastic waste, society may adopt recycling programs. Such approaches may be well-intended and may come at a relatively low economic or political cost. However, they often prove ineffective or even harmful, and they may mislead society into believing that further responses are unnecessary. This Article proposes the concept of “too-easy solutions” to describe these approaches. Too easy solutions can be classified into three subcategories: fig leaves—policy approaches that appear to do something about a problem without necessarily solving it; pipe dreams—policy approaches that are adopted with the good faith expectation of solving the problem but are inherently flawed; and myopic solutions—approaches that address part of the problem but may impede its overall resolution. Too-easy solutions analysis can serve as a powerful mechanism for evaluating policies and improving decisionmaking in the environmental arena and other areas as well.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2147334
- PAR ID:
- 10397726
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- University of Colorado law review
- ISSN:
- 0041-9516
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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