Teaching Urban Design to Kids

From 2017-2019, I got to work on an after school program for 5th graders where we used design thinking and pop-up projects to learn about urban planning and how to make their neighborhood safer for walking and biking. We did a series of exercises to learn how urban design impacts quality of life and how art can be used to imagine improvements. They did "walkshops" with disposable cameras to take pictures of the things they like and the things they wanted to change. They drew on top of 11X17 printouts of their own pictures and they used glue guns and art supplies to make miniature models of playgrounds and streetscapes. Then we helped them create life-size models of their ideas. In 2017, we helped design a playground and their ideas were incorporated into a permanent installation by Denver Parks and Recreation. In 2018 and 2019, we made streetscape models called Tiny Town. After we built the popup streetscape, the kids used bikes and scooters to test out their ideas.