At Kids’ City, Third Graders Become Planners

Planning helps a city thrive. Subdivision regulations, ordinances, and comprehensive land use plans are terms that planners throw around constantly, but what terms do third-graders relate to when they think about planning? If we are fortunate enough, one child that does know something about it will say that it is the public access channel that broadcasts the boring meetings on it.

The Rutherford County Regional Planning Commission and Rutherford County’s local chapter of the League of Women Voters have worked diligently to help reshape that image for third graders. To this end, we want our youth to understand the planning process and how to incorporate that into a functional environment. The Rutherford County Regional Planning Commission and the League of Women Voters brought the Tennessee Kids’ City program to Murfreesboro, Tennessee in 1998. The goal of Kids’ City is to educate young people about community planning and the function of their community government. Kids’ City is a program designed to combine classroom instruction with real life experience.

This program can be used as a teaching tool in the elementary and high schools. The curriculum provided can be incorporated into a two-week lesson or a full semester lesson plan. The high school students have the opportunity to learn about city planning and city council responsibilities. Most importantly they work with the elementary students to guide them during the Kids’ City activities.

The curriculum focuses on the three points within one academic year:

1. Students will have the opportunity to learn about civic responsibility and decision making in local government.
2. Students then put that learning into practice by building a “City”. Kids’ City includes hands-on learning opportunities.
3. We also hope to create better cooperation and understanding among the various age groups, while teaching teamwork with the process.

The primary focus of the Kids’ City curriculum is county history, civic responsibility, and decision making in local government. Math, science, and art are also included in the process as students learn the importance of structural components, architectural design, and proportion. Participating teachers are given a full curriculum, which includes overheads and projects. Classes have the opportunity to build some structures during class time. On the days of the event, students learn city planning, city council, and community responsibilities throughout the planning process.

The two-day Kids’ City event is open to 3rd grade classes and high school government classes. While third-graders actually build the city, students from high school government classes act as city officials. With the help of the Rutherford County Election Commission, using real voting machines, third-graders also elect a Mayor of Kids’ City from among the high school nominees.
Volunteers for the festivities include engineers, planners, elected officials, architects, real estate developers, realtors, city and county officials, and other citizens interested in planning and their children’s education. These volunteers work both with the high school students in making decisions about how the city will be laid out and with the third grade students constructing buildings.

Even the volunteers “get into” the event. Everyone has fun building, planning, and learning.

Nekya Young is a GIS Planner and the Kids’ City Coordinator for the Rutherford County Regional Planning Commission.

If you or someone you know would like to bring Kids’ City to your community, please contact Charlotte Gardner at 896-3987 or email Nekya at nyoung@rutherfordcounty.org for a copy of the curriculum.