Red River College Polytechnic
AC-5: Immersive Experience

The Social Innovation and Community Development program is designed for those aspiring to effect change in urban, rural, local, or global settings. Graduates of this program will have the theoretical knowledge, practical skills, and workplace experience for employment in sectors focusing on socio-economic development and environmental issues. The applied nature of the program helps students build the capacity to work for Indigenous communities and organizations, government institutions, or social enterprises.

The program features collaborative courses and assignments using a team-based approach. The delivery model focuses on experiential and project-based learning principles with capstone projects uniting multiple dimensions of learning, and introducing potential employment. Participants complete work experience courses at all levels of the program.

The practicum component is designed for students to have an immersive experience. The student role is to integrate themselves in the organization by using course work learned to formulate plan to work with said organization to meet an organizational need or answer a question or topic they have an interest in to solve or to further their understanding in. A couple of examples of recent immersive experiences by students are listed below:
- A student worked with Food Matters Manitoba, an organization that works on sustainability and food security across Manitoba. The student was interested in food security from an ethno-cultural lens so she interviewed participants from varied backgrounds about their food choices and who that fits into the Winnipeg cultural mosaic as it pertains to access, culture and acceptance of different food choices.
- Another student worked with Sage Garden, which uses only 100% natural fertilizers and 100% non-toxic pest management on all plants they grow. The student’s goal was to use the greenhouse experience to further her ideas on the growing, maintenance and function of growing plants and vegetables in an ecologically manner and with respect for our natural world. Her ultimate goal was to bring food security to her community in Northern Manitoba by creating her own greenhouse to provide fresh food to her community without having to ship from other regions and to make her community more self-sufficient when it came to food.