Reaching Out to Youth and Students

National Community Planning Month offers innumerable opportunities to educate young people about the role planning has played in shaping their neighborhood, town or city, and surrounding region — and also to engage them in thinking of ways planning can make these places even better.

If you are a planning student, click here for suggested activities.

APA Resources

APA's website already offers a wealth of ideas and resource information for working with children and teenagers, whether in school, through extracurricular activities, or at special events:

ResourcesZine
ResourcesZine is APA's Youth and Planning Resource Center. It is a free online database featuring hundreds of ideas for involving young people in planning or teaching them about community planning, environmental protection, urban design, civic engagement, geography and GIS, social studies, transportation, history, and other planning-related topics. Sortable by topic and resource type, ResourcesZine includes descriptions of curriculums, lesson plans, programs, activities, websites, books, events, and more. Let ResourcesZine be your guide for inspiring youth to become proactive members of their communities.

Kids and Community
This site is especially for kids themselves. It's a place where they can learn what planners do, post their own drawings and descriptions of Great Places (and lousy ones too!), learn about wonderful children's books that feature different communities (and post reviews of their own favorite books), and create a scavenger hunt that will get them out exploring and documenting their own community. Some of the activities described on this site can also be adapted for use during National Community Planning Month.

Youth Planning Charrettes
Available from Planners Press, this 95-page paperback book contains a wealth of good advice about how to involve children from kindergarten through eighth grade in planning through the use of charrettes or design workshops. Learn how to organize, facilitate, and document charrettes, letting kids have fun while they are engaged in the serious business of planning for their community's future. Examples from around the country show how youth charrettes have been used in schools, museums, and as part of local planning efforts.

Working with K-12 Schools

History, geography, civics, science, art, technology, service learning ...

There are so many entry points in the K-12 curriculum where planning topics, processes, and tools can be used to help teachers meet the learning objectives they have set for their students. Planning, whether at the scale of the neighborhood, city, or region, also provides students with exciting, real-world contexts for their academic learning, teaches them important life skills, and shows them that their actions and ideas can help shape their community now.

Partnering with Teachers

Like planners, teachers are busy professionals. With today's requirement that they prepare students for state mandated tests, they also plan their sequence of lessons and learning activities well in advance. At the same time, most teachers are eager to demonstrate the link between classroom learning and real-world applications. Many welcome the opportunity to bring experts into the classroom and to collaborate with other adults on learning activities based in the community itself.

If you are excited by the prospect of working with young people during National Community Planning Month, contact K-12 educators as soon as possible, recognizing that the first weeks of the new school year are often more chaotic than normal. Additional tips:

• Consider what age group you would like to work with: elementary, middle, or high school.
• Familiarize yourself with some of the lesson plans and learning activities for that age group available on APA's site and other web sites.
• Consider planning issues that may be apparent in the neighborhood around the school itself or other issues in the community or region that could be linked to environmental education, social studies, and other subject areas.
• What resources might you be able to bring into the classroom: maps, photographs, a demonstration of GIS or visual simulation technology?
• If you don't already have a teacher in mind, contact the school's principal. If you don't have a specific school in mind, contact the school district office and ask to speak to a curriculum supervisor who works with teachers in a particular subject area, like social studies, or with certain grade levels. A good supervisor should be able to suggest teachers who might be receptive to working with a planner.
• Meet with the teacher to learn what he or she will be teaching during October and to discuss how a planning-related learning activity might support those objectives. Share sample lesson plans or web-based resources, if appropriate, and discuss how these might be tailored to the students' needs.
• Partner with the teacher in delivering the agreed-upon learning activity and have fun!

Sample Resources

The following are just a few of the many lesson plans, learning activities, and other resources you can tap in preparing to work with K-12 teachers and students. See ResourcesZine for links to more sources, including CDs and other audio-visual tools.

APA lesson plans
Check out these three lesson plans, suitable for elementary, middle, and high school use and guidelines for organizing a "Planners Day in the Schools" event as part of a planning conference.

ViewFinders and ViewFinders Too
Developed by the Dunn Foundation, ViewFinders is a program for students in grades 4-6 which focuses on community character and the impacts of human activities on the visual environment. ViewFinders Too is a 6th-8th grade program in which students explore the visual environment within their own community and investigate the tools and resources which can be used to shape a community's appearance.

Center for Understanding the Built Environment
CUBE connects educators, design and planning professionals, and activist citizens in carrying out community based education activities in the classroom. The site has an online a newsletter, "archi-tivities," workshop information, a catalogue of teaching resources, and curriculum units such as Box City and Walk Around the Block, all focused on educating and empowering young people to exercise stewardship for both built and natural environments. Free lesson plans are indexed by grade and subject area.

Lesson Plans on Cities and Suburbs
The National Geographic Society has free lesson plans for grades K-12 addressing issues of city design, sprawl, and planning. As part of its Geography Action! program focusing on habitats, NGS produced Three Little Pigs in Earthquake Land (grades K-2), Design Your Own Suburb (3-5), What To Do About Sprawl (6-8), and Planning for a City's Future (9-12). As part of its XPeditions program, the society created the following lesson plans: Traditional Towns and Modern Suburbs (K-2), Planning a New Town (6-8), Life on the Edge: Cities on the Fringe (9-12), and Sprawl: The National and Local Situation (9-12).

KIDS Consortium
Founded by planner Marvin Rosenblum, the KIDS (Kids Involved in Doing Service) Consortium works with teachers, administrators, and community partners to involve K-12 students in service-learning projects that address real challenges faced by their communities. Together they identify, research, and work to solve problems and meet local needs. The KIDS as Planners Guidebook offers a compendium of past projects.

Architecture in Education
Launched in 1981 by the Philadelphia Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, AIE has become an internationally recognized K-12 education program. It provides participating teachers with a two person design team consisting of a practicing professional and graduate student (generally in architecture, but also in landscape architecture and planning) to work for an eight-week period on learning activities tailored to the students' needs. The AIE web site features lesson plans from participating schools, as well as links to other learning activities.

Earth Force
Since 1994, Earth Force has been assisting teachers and students in developing and implementing community service projects linked to classroom learning. Projects may include conducting inventories of local conditions (e.g., bikeways, tree canopy, non-point source pollution), examining current policies and suggesting new ones, and undertaking hands-on improvements. Earth Force offers teachers materials, training, and support through three programs: Community Action and Problem Solving (CAPS), Global Rivers Environmental Education Network (GREEN), and Earth Force after School.

The Places We Live
Project Learning Tree is one of the most widely used environmental education programs in the United States. Thoroughly field tested, curriculum materials are available to teachers only through attending training workshops. With guidance from APA, ULI, and others, PLT has recently released a new high school module entitled The Places We Live. It helps studentsexamine the environmental, social, and economic impacts of decisions connected to community growth. Learning activities include: Community Character, Mapping Your Community through Time, Neighborhood Design, Green Space, and Regional Issues. If local teachers have not accessed this curriculum, APA members can encourage them to do so and offer to link these learning activities to current planning issues and options in the community.

Going Places, Making Choices: Transportation and the Environment
This innovative curriculum developed by the National 4-H Council is experiential and focuses on raising the awareness of high school students about transportation and personal mobility choices now and in the future. The curriculum consists of five units: Cruise through History, Natural Resources and Energy Use, Air Pollution and Climate Change, Land Use, and A Matter of Choice: Taking Action.

Education for Sustainable Development Toolkit
This free, downloadable manual was created to help educators and community leaders reorient education so that it promotes greater understanding of sustainable development. The toolkit includes case studies, management techniques for initiating change into schools, exercises, and links to other websites.

Smart Growth and Water Resource Protection
Part of EPA's online "Watershed Academy," this module helps high school students understand how historical trends in growth patterns have become the most significant challenge for preserving water quality and meeting future water resource goals. It includes tools, resources and case studies illustrating how land use decisions made at the local and state levels can help protect and restore water resources by using innovative approaches that meet economic, environmental and social goals.

GIS in K-12 Education
Increasingly across the country, teachers of science, social studies, technology, and environmental education are using GIS in the classroom. National Community Planning Month offers an opportunity for APA members to partner with these teachers to show students some of the ways in which GIS is used by public agencies and planning firms to analyze complex issues and interactions spatially and to illustrate proposed solutions from the neighborhood to the watershed scale.

Planners (and students in planning school) may also find opportunities to help K-12 students prepare for GIS Day, which is part of the National Geographic Society's Geography Action initiative. This year GIS Day falls on November 15. For resource materials and examples of past events, see www.gisday.com/. ESRI's K-12 site (link to www.esri.com/industries/k-12/education/lessons.html) features a wealth of material for educators, including lesson plans and the U.S. Community Atlas Project, through which students submit GIS maps and text describing their communities, illustrate its evolution, or identify a threatened resource. Additional web resources for GIS in K-12 learning may be found at
http://kangis.org/learning/calendar/links/.

Lights, Camera ... Leadership!
The Orton Family Foundation, which sponsored the Planning Advisory Service Report entitled Lights, Camera, Community Video!, mentioned under Suggested Activities, (link) has also created a companion high school curriculum. Distributed by the Rural School and Community Trust, the curriculum shows how students can develop leadership and academic skills by making and premiering a video on planning or other issues of importance to their community. Planners interested in partnering with high schools during National Community Planning Month may wish to bring this curriculum to the attention of media, technology, arts, and other teachers,

Considering a Career in Planning
High school teachers or guidance counselors may be interested in inviting APA members into the school to talk with students about career opportunities in planning. This section of the web site contains useful information about the many kinds of work that planners do, the skills they need, options in planning education, scholarships, ethical standards in the profession, and more.

Walk to School
Is your community facing childhood health issues related to inactivity? Or are you interested in learning more about how good planning can enhance schools and the experience of students? Then you may wish to sponsor a Walk to School activity in your community. The Safe Routes to School National Partnership is holding a national walk to school activity during National Community Planning Month. You and your young people can get involved in this fun and healthy activity. Read more at www.saferoutespartnership.org and www.walktoschool-usa.org.

To learn more about the issue of school siting and good planning, click here for an article by Timothy Torma of the U.S. EPA that appeared in the summer issue of The Commissioner. You may share this article with your school board.

Outreach to Youth Groups

Adept at tapping the insights of young people as part of established planning processes, many APA members may already have good contacts with organizations and institutions through which to engage them. In addition to local schools, these may include after-school programs run by faith-based and community development organizations, museums focusing on art, history, or science, environmental groups and nature science centers, parks and recreation centers, and any number of youth membership groups, such as the scouts.

Any one of these institutions or groups may be interested in the educational and service opportunities afforded by National Community Planning Month. Like K-12 teachers, however, each must meet its own objectives and will likely have programs planned for the fall. When approaching them, therefore, the same tips apply as with teachers: learn what their mission is, what is already planned or on the drawing board for October, and what resources (or constraints) they may have in terms of staff and facilities. Be prepared to propose activities related to the themes of the Month that will complement existing programs while offering enrichment opportunities.

Many of the activities suggested for outreach to adults and to K-12 schools, such as forums, Box City events, charrettes, walking tours, and community videos, may be modified to fit the age group reached by one or another of these local institutions. APA members may also be able to add a planning dimension to learning or service activities already sponsored by local groups, such as watershed analysis, recreation inventories, or local heritage studies. Planning agencies may also wish to sponsor an official youth summit as part of National Community Planning Month, inviting children and teens to share their insights about local needs and offer suggestions to the local planning commission, city council, or county board.

The resources shown below contain numerous examples of youth empowerment and engagement in the planning process. While not all-inclusive, the list of national organizations that follows offers a starting point for exploring potential partners for youth outreach as part of National Community Planning Month.

Resources

The YouthPower Guide
In 2000, APA gave its Public Education Award to El Arco Iris, the youth arts program of Nueva Esperanza, a community development agency in Holyoke, Massachusetts. The award recognized El Arco's YouthPower program, which is dedicated to engaging teenagers in planning and community improvement. Through the program, Holyoke youth have designed and painted local murals, renovated park spaces, developed their own community maps, and served as the leaders of neighborhood planning workshops. The YouthPower Guide: How to Make Your Community Better is a manual based on the program's success over more than 10 years. Written for use with young people ages 10 to 19 in an after-school setting, the guide contains 24 activities and a framework for developing new projects.

How to Hold a Youth Summit Planning Guide
This planning guide is one of several useful publications from the Search Institute, an organization devoted to promoting youth leadership and healthier communities. Designed so that young people themselves can lead the event, it explains how to organize and conduct every aspect of an effective youth summit. Other useful titles from the Search Institute include Step by Step, a guide to identifying and tackling neighborhood issues — written by young people and youth workers — and The Journey of Community Change, about developing initiatives to support healthy communities.

Youth Voices in Community Design Handbook
Developed with support from APA and the Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities, this is a how-to guide on getting young people involved in local policymaking and community planning. The handbook, offering case studies and advice on engaging youth, is supported by an online library with more than 200 additional resources.

Green Map System
Established in 1995 as a nonprofit organization, the Green Map System (GMS) is a locally adaptable, globally shared framework for environmental mapmaking. It invites design teams of all ages and backgrounds to illuminate the connections between natural and human environments by mapping their local urban or rural community. The GMS network is active worldwide. Every Green Map is the result of a locally driven process, but one that is influenced by other mapmakers' experiences. The GMS website is the gathering point for these stories, as well as the place to find out who is involved and how they are making Green Maps. The site also has a special section devoted to "Youth Mapmakers" with an activity guide for school or after-school use.

Youth Groups

Use these links to learn about the programs of major national organizations serving young people and, in many cases, to find contact information for the local affiliate in your own community.

4-H Afterschool
4-H Afterschool is a collaborative effort of the Cooperative Extension System — state land grant universities, state and county governments and USDA's Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service — and the National 4-H Council. The program helps 4-H and other youth-serving organizations create and improve after-school programs in urban, suburban, and rural communities across the U.S. The program's "learn-by-doing" curriculum covers topics such as citizenship and civic education, environmental education, personal development and leadership, and science and technology. Online resources include a 72-page "sampler" of after school service and learning activities. Call your county extension agent or use the searchable online map to find the extension office nearest to you.

Boys and Girls Clubs of America
Career education, community service, computer skills, and a national photography competition are just some of the programs offered by the Boys and Girls Clubs. Use your zip code to locate the closest club or call a toll-free number.

Boy Scouts
Scouting offers teenagers numerous opportunities for conservation and community service projects. More than 300 local council service centers help local troops effectively use Scouting programs and partner with other community groups. Use your zip code to locate the service center nearest you.

Future Farmers of America
While focused on helping young people prepare for careers in agriculture, FFA also offers award-winning chapter projects as "models of innovation" in such areas as environmental stewardship, community development, and citizenship. In addition, FFA's LifeKnowledge curriculum consists of 257 lesson plans created to help middle school and high school students develop skills in leadership, personal growth, and career success.

Girl Scouts
Programs in community outreach and education, environmental awareness, health, the arts, and science, technology, engineering, and math, offer numerous potential links to local and regional planning. Use your zip code to find the Girl Scout Council in your area.

YMCA
Many Y's offer programs in the arts and humanities, youth and government, and community development, all of which could relate to the themes of National Community Planning Month. Use the online search function to Find Your YMCA.

YWCA
The YWCA's current "hallmark program" is devoted to eliminating racism and empowering women. Civic participation, choice and affordability in housing and transportation, environmental justice, and many other planning issues resonate with these challenging goals and may serve as a basis for developing activities during National Community Planning Month and beyond. Use a searchable map to find regional councils and local associations.

More Ideas to Come!

Look out for more suggested activities the next month, including tips on how to engage college campuses.