In June, 2010, Professor Alex Chen and graduate students from the Urban Studies and Planning Program (URSP) at the University of Maryland, worked with third graders from a local public school in Washington, DC to help them better understand the environment in which they live. Over several class sessions, third graders conducted a field audit of 25 city blocks surrounding their school. The audit prepared by the teacher, Ms. Kendra Heffelbower, with support from Professor Chen, asked them to identify observable features in the area immediately surrounding their school.
With prepared maps of the area and an inventory form, students recorded such items ranging from traffic signs to trees, cars to storm drains and types of buildings to open spaces. In turn, in a session facilitated by Professor Chen, students discussed the strengths and weaknesses, as well as the opportunities and threats to the neighborhood which they observed.
Based on their SWOT analysis, students were asked to build their ideal community using the Box City Model. Graduate planning students, Jamie Fearer (top photo) and Pam Eichenbaum (middle photo) , as well as volunteer parents, including a URSP alum, provided advice and assistance to the individual student teams, as they tried to realize their vision.
In the past, students have been asked to build their city using boxes on a standard city grid. In this case, Ms. Heffelbower, using maps from the audit as a guide, created her own city grid (25 feet by 15 feet) on a plastic drop cloth, which replicated the study area. As such, students were better able to draw the connection between their field experience and their vision of the ideal community. The activity concluded with students describing their newly built environment.
As one might expect, the third graders thoroughly enjoyed the experience. The field audit provided the students an opportunity to become more aware of their environment, not to mention get out of the classroom. They were actively engaged in the SWOT discussion and provided insights that might not have been readily observed in other situations. Box City gave students the tools to see that space matters. Students struggled with the challenge of including all their wants and needs in a limited space, e.g. sometimes they forgot they needed housing. Finally, students embraced the opportunity to talk about their newly designed neighborhood.
Box City is a mechanism to connect children with community. However, it also provides the planning community an opportunity to introduce our youth to the principles and practices of the profession. Though this was a particularly young group, the exercise was felt to at least plant the seeds of planning as a course of study and possible career. Certainly, we left students with a hopefully positive notion of what planners do.
The Urban Studies and Planning Program hopes to continue this type of community outreach with the K- 12 school community. The next step is to develop evaluation tools to assess the impact that such activities have on learning.
Another project utilizing Box City as a platform for education is reflected in a new Math by Design/Math in Action education video used in local middle schools in Maryland and produced by the Maryland Public Television. Box City helps introduce students to the tools that planners use, in particular, mathematics. While middle school students learn how to use and articulate math concepts, graduate planning students who serve as "consultants" to the students are apprised of how to deal with "clients".
Math by Design Urban Planning video is now an online resource focused on STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects, which is a national public television initiative to provide in-class learning tool for both middle school students and teachers.
Contact
Alex Chen Associate Professor, Urban Studies and Planning Program, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, phone: 301-405-6798, achen@umd.edu.
