Community Needs And Trade-Offs

What you will learn

• Learn to read the needs of a community by looking at its context rather than assuming from the outside.
• Identify at least two competing priorities that pull a community in different directions and understand why trade-offs are unavoidable.
• Work through a realistic local trade-off case, naming the options, the stakeholders, and the specific cost of each choice.
• Build a simple community map showing stakeholders, needs, and the connections between them.

What happens in this lesson

1. Chapter 1: Community Context

   Learn to read the needs of a community by looking at its context rather than assuming from the outside.

   What you make: A saved context note describing one community the student knows, naming at least three needs visible from inside the community that an outsider might miss.

2. Chapter 2: Competing Priorities

   Identify at least two competing priorities that pull a community in different directions and understand why trade-offs are unavoidable.

   What you make: A saved competing-priorities note naming two specific priorities in the student's own community that pull in different directions, and what the trade-off between them looks like.

3. Chapter 3: Local Trade-Off Case

   Work through a realistic local trade-off case, naming the options, the stakeholders, and the specific cost of each choice.

   What you make: A saved trade-off case response naming three options, the stakeholders affected by each, and the specific cost of the recommended option.

4. Chapter 4: Community Map

   Build a simple community map showing stakeholders, needs, and the connections between them.

   What you make: A saved community map listing at least four stakeholder groups, their primary needs, and at least two connections between groups.

5. Chapter 5: Choose With A Framework

   Use community context, trade-offs, and stakeholder connections to make and defend a decision in a complex real case.

   What you make: A saved decision framework that ranks priorities in a complex community case, explains the trade-offs, and justifies one recommendation with evidence from the map.