Youth As Urban Designers

Wow! What a week it has been.

We have been busy looking for journals, articles, new paper stories and much more! It seems as we begin to look at child friendly cities that a hole opens up that we are tumbling through and several hours have passed. I have realized that many of the studies, or closer looks at child friendly cities have been heavily focused in the UK. Check out some of the notes from webinars we have attended to get an idea.

While this is just the beginning of the research and literature we will be looking at, I have a feeling that we definitely are not done yet. I am okay with that, the more we research, the more we learn. Not only are we able to share the wealth of knowledge we find with our partners in Chandigarh but it is something that we can bring to the classroom. We can apply the lens of a child friendly city in our classrooms and see what the next generation of children have to say.

Though this week has come with its challenges as well. We are creeping up to the half way mark in the semester and everything else is ramping up as well. I have found that this week has been full of zoom webinars and meetings and I am looking forward to the weekend with a little less screen time. Virtual everything is challenging at times, but I am going to take that as a sign to get out and explore my city more.

Not only have I been looking in articles, but out of a random conversation the three of us had I am now looking into podcasts that we can link here. Hopefully all of the videos, podcasts, and webinar notes help any future teachers who stumble across our blog later.

Stay tuned for what Missy and Casandra have been up to!

– Stephanie

Hey everyone, Stephanie here. I have been thinking about the curriculum modules we are beginning to create and it made me think that if we are asking the students to go out and explore their city, neighbourhood or community then why shouldn’t we also explore OUR spaces too. We have to model the activities so that the students can have a better understanding of what we would like them to do.

This morning I decided to explore part of the neighbourhood I live in and see what I could find. I live in a pretty dense urban area with an industrial/business area close by. Not to mention the two major roads that sandwich me between them. You could say that I wasn’t super optimistic of what I would find on my walk this morning. Well as I explored I found this little park with some forested area around it nestled in amongst the single family homes. I was pleasantly surprised to find this little park and green space for the children in the area to have to explore, create and imagine in. While I wish there was more green space for them to utilize I also thought maybe the children in the area use the spaces around their houses to create, play and imagine together. Perhaps the lack of green space encourages them to collaborate together to create chalk drawings, fantasy lands and a space to build their own ‘city’.

Stay tuned for a map of my neighbourhood!