Map the System 2020
Click play to watch the virtual celebratory showcase of our 2020 Map the System (MTS) program. This virtual event is hosted by OSI Executive Director Melanie Panitch and includes a keynote by Hansel Igbavboa and Sheldomar Elliott.
MTS supports students in studying and researching a complex social or environmental issue through skill-building workshops and mentorship from faculty members and community leaders. Through the program, students identify an issue, develop their skills in critically understanding the components to the issue, and are guided through creating a report and visual map based on their learning.
Student Submissions
The City of Toronto, Canada, is now the 6th most expensive city in the world in terms of rental housing. In the last decade, the cost of housing has far outpaced income growth, with house prices growing four times faster and rent growing two times faster. This project uses a systems thinking approach to examine the ongoing affordable rental housing crisis in Toronto, its social and economic impacts, and its proposed solutions. The project also draws comparisons between Toronto's situation and housing crises in other metropolitan areas around the world. A systems thinking approach of the housing crisis reveals a conflict of two ideologies on how housing should be treated: as a human right, or as a commodity.
Team: Crystal Fung, Sahil Parikh, and Piotr Zulauf
Learning to work in teams is a significant learning outcome in most, if not all, of post-secondary programmes in Ontario. However, the efficacy of teaching and learning teamwork within these programmes may not be satisfactory for the requirement of post-secondary institutions.
Team: Lam Thieu, Moh S. Rad, and Sagal Aden
Transit equity seeks to understand the ways in which the system is fair and accessible among the needs of different populations. Although public transit provides essential access to services that are required to live a productive life for many people who live in spatially marginalized neighbourhoods there are many factors which allow inequitable transit to persist.
Team: Faizan Ahmed, Ozora Amin, Devan Moura, and Jean-François Obregón
The recognition of transgender people (The authors use “trans* - with an asterisk & simply “trans” as an umbrella term to refer to a variety of identities that are constantly evolving) in and out of sport is changing rapidly, and popular news media now regularly mentions the lives and experiences of transgender individuals. This analysis recognizes the increasing visibility of transgender people in sports.
Team: Mary Gomes and Logan Wong
As we live in a progressively complex and increasingly global world, there is a desperate need for educational institutions to transform. A structural shift in both education and curriculum is necessary to keep at pace with the needs of our technological future.
Team: Alyssa Efthymia Mosgopoulos
Adolescence is one of the most rapid changes that happen across the human life span, where physical, psychological, emotional, and personality changes happen. It's a critical time for teenage girls to describe themselves, take decisions, and be confident around their peers. The sudden change in girls’ confidence is explained to be related to what girls are taught by their mentors, to be nice and kind, and to silence what they feel.
Team: Aahd Alanqar
While vaping products and e-cigarettes were developed to help current adult smokers quit smoking, the inappropriate marketing and youth-oriented social enticement has led to an unanticipated but rapid rise in vaping among youth and young adults. The usage trend of such products among younger, nicotine addiction-free populations is troubling due to the potential consequences of introducing a highly infatuating practice that is both under-researched and harmful to health.
Team: Harmiksha Patel and Riya Brahmbhatt
In Ontario, home care services support people with health issues who are unable to care for themselves but can remain at home. Although home care is publicly-funded for patients in Ontario, all frontline care has been outsourced to a variety of external organizations ranging from large for-profit companies like Extendicare to non-profit organizations such as the Victorian Order of Nurses (VON). As the population in Ontario ages, there is more demand for home care services for the elderly, particularly those living with chronic medical conditions.
Team: Jenny Bicong Ge
Peer Support is a system of giving and receiving help recognized through key principles of respect, mutual responsibility, and agreement of what is helpful. On February 18, 2016, the Ontario Government introduced Bill 163, Supporting Ontario’s First Responder’s Act (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). To meet the criteria, first responding departments including fire, paramedics and police adopted policies and Peer Support Teams outlined in the Legislation. However, PTSD & suicides continue to increase since 2016.
Team: Stephen Sacchitiello
This project provides an analysis of poverty in the Yonge-Dundas Corridor in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Team: Muhammad Abdul Hadi