Youth As Urban Designers

We have been busy working on community mapping curriculum this week

We are all so excited to present this to our partners in India, and get some teachers connected. It will be great to see what the teachers and their students think of the workbooks, lesson plans, and activities that we have been working on these past few months and we hope that through these modules we will see children becoming more connected to their communities and local government.

Imagine a world where children are part of the urban design process… how amazing would our cities be?

– Missy

Something that I didn’t realize until recently is that since being part of this internship I am always tuned in.

Let me break that down a little because that is such a broad term! What I mean is that with all the research and background knowledge we are learning, I am turning that lens on the world around me. I find that I am observing the community around me, taking in what spaces there are for children, how they are able to navigate the area. I am even tuning into the radio more to see if more people are talking about child-friendly cities.

This morning I just happened to stubble upon the radio host interviewing someone from Mind and Soil (you can find them on instagram @mindandsoil) and they were discussing the benefits of children looking after plants. One thing that caught my attention was that having children take care of a plant, no matter the outcome of it, that they form empathy for the plant. They become invested in the plants growth, life, and taking care of it. I hadn’t thought of having a child take care of a plant could translate into something even larger outside of the school setting like that.

Just something to think about, make sure you keep yourself open, your ears open while you are out in the community, listening to the radio, or t.v., you never know when you could stumble upon something that could help you change the spaces in your communities. AND listen to the children in your life, they have some cool ideas of how to transform the world around them to make it better for them.

For now, I am going to keep ‘tuning in’ and being open to the information around me that could help influence my community to make changes.

– Stephanie

Today was a wonderful day for us on the internship front. Missy, Steph, and I met bright and early this morning at a local park in the Fraser Valley to really delve into the curriculum component of our internship. It was so nice to see each other in a face-to-face setting again.

We spent a majority of the morning testing out some of the lesson plans we have already created. We spent the morning planting seeds, while telling stories and discussing the different aspects of curriculum, topics, and themes we could or should include in our gardening & farming module.

After planting seeds, conversing, and taking notes on what else we wanted to include in our gardening module, we moved on to discuss the lesson plans in our other curriculum modules. We left the park this afternoon feeling accomplished but also motivated and rejuvenated for the weeks to come as we finish up our work on this internship and the Winter semester.

The three of us plan to meet again next weekend, where we will work on our placemaking module. It is going to be so fun! Fingers crossed the weather holds out as the weather network is currently calling for rain and snow. I love Winter but I am so ready for Spring!

We will be busy all week long working on lesson plans to fulfill our curriculum modules. In the meantime, keep an eye out for new blog posts and be sure to check out our gallery for additional photos about this project. We are so excited to share our finished lesson plans with you all. Stay tuned!

***Please note we wore masks and followed Covid-19 protocols.

– Cas

While it has taken me a little bit I finally got a drawing of my neighbourhood. As you can see the neighbourhood that I live in offers very little of a play space for children. We have the trains going by, that are loud, which could drive kids to not want to play outside, but also with two major roadways make it not the safest area for children to be outside in this area.

Though not all is lost for this neighbourhood. There is a small park that has some green space, as well as trees that do line the street. And if you take about a 10-15 minute walk from here you are immersed in a forest area along the river. There is also a larger park area and green space that is along the trail at the river as well. So, while my neighbourhood isn’t geared towards children with a little bit of a walk you can reach some awesome green space and parks for children.

If I could change something in my neighbourhood to make it more child-friendly, I would see what the children of the neighbourhood wanted to see. Maybe that means shutting the street down for block parties or street hockey. Maybe that looks like a communal library box, or bulletin board to share their creations they made in their yards. All of these things could possibly lead to more neighbourhood connections and friendships made, which would fuel the inspiration we are seeing with the children of the neighbourhood.

Hopefully when other educators have their classes draw maps of their neighbourhoods they can identify the areas that are the best for them, or what they could change. Maybe it leads to something that they can add to their letters they write to their local government. Drawing a map of your neighbourhood can bring light to so many new ideas.

Have fun, get creative and keep checking back to see what else we are doing.

– Stephanie

Well, where to start?! I am a little late to posting an individual post to this blog. What can I say…its been its been a hectic few weeks in my neck of the woods, but better late than never.

Over the past few weeks, I, along with Missy and Steph, have been researching child friendly cities around the world. It is a fascinating topic and there are so many different aspects of the child friendly city that we can learn from to make sure our own cities and communities are more inclusive for all citizens big or small.

Besides working on our annotated bibliography and literature review, I had been tasked with finding children’s literature to both support and supplement our curriculum modules. You can find our list of resources under the classroom activities menu in books. I love a good read-a-long book and let me tell you there are SO MANY books about neighbourhoods, communities, citizenship, parks, playgrounds, and community gardens to be found and used as resources. Every time I search for books, it seems there are new titles with new ideas to support Children and their interactions with others and the environment in their neighborhoods, communities and cities. Plenty of content and resources means there are tons of opportunities for us as parents and educators to actively encourage our children to voice their concerns and ideas as young citizens within our communities and cities.

In the next week or two I will be using a few of the books found in our resource list to develop curriculum models that encourage children to share their perspectives on what communities mean to them and how they interact with their respective communities.

I really encourage you to check our current selections out and make sure to check back for new titles over the upcoming weeks!

Stay tuned for more information about this internship and lots of fun curriculum!

– Cas

In a world where going green is the most common thing, what can we do to bring this aspect into the classroom.

This is just one of many questions we have been asking ourselves as we begin to create curriculum for our modules. Something that I have been passionate about and been involved in since I was a child has been gardening. Thank’s to my mom who is a horticulturist I have learned A LOT! That doesn’t mean I am a pro at it, I still have my non-green thumb moments, sorry houseplants…but it is always a learning process and sometimes you have to experiment.

After some discussion with my mom (she has more knowledge than I do, don’t be afraid to ask for help) I discovered that we needed to make sure that the plants we chose to include can be grown in both Abbotsford and Chandigarh climates. Make sure to check out the module for a fun way to research the climates in both locations and the reasons behind why some plants can grow only in certain places.

I have done a bit a research, connected with my sources (my mom) and come up with a plan. Now most schools may not have the resources or time to have a school community garden, but if you do it is an excellent teaching opportunity about resources, growth, and sustainability. Having a community garden or even a classroom window garden you can use it to cross multi disciplines: science, math, and english! Not to mention the TASTE TESTING!! I think this last piece is just as important as the rest, have the students taste what they have grown. From experience what you grow tastes 10x better than store bought. And depending how big your garden is you could donate the food you grow to your school meal program. How cool is that! Check out the Food, Garden, Life Podcast “Teaching Life Skills in a Garden Classroom” located on our podcast page.

Keep your eyes out for some awesome, interactive, and mind blowing curriculum coming soon!

– Stephanie

Photo Credit: John Boitnott. "4 Reasons Why Going Green Has Gone Mainstream in Business". Inc. May 27, 2015. https://www.inc.com/john-boitnott/4-reasons-why-going-green-has-gone-mainstream-in-business.html

I ordered this book a few weeks ago and it finally arrived!

I’ve been flipping through it all day on and off and so far it really does help define the natural and built environments. Outdoor spaces have little manufactured items and thus, offer freedom. Classrooms are designed to dictate activities – you have a desk you sit at to work, you stand at the chalkboard to teach, the shelves are full of bins that store items and keep the room organized. Inside you lose that freedom, but outside offers endless possibilities.

As our world becomes more urbanized children are losing outdoor spaces and what they do have access to is usually constrained and controlled by adults. I’m excited to work with Stephanie and Casandra to find ways to bring freedom outdoors back to children and we have some ideas brewing that I think will be amazing tools to help implement this into our communities again.

– Missy