Driving Question
8th
What PBE Principles were highlighted in this project?
Community as Classroom, Design Thinking, Inquiry-Based, Interdisciplinary, Learner-Centered
Project Description
The 8th grade helped the City of New Meadows by designing the layout and helping to install playground equipment in Dorsey Warr Memorial Park. We are continuing to build the ripple, and our classmates have worked to improve the park in multiple ways already. We are very excited to partner with the city.
We took a walking field trip to the park to sketch designs and inspect the current equipment. We added a Jumping Jack Play System, an adaptive swing seat, and more swings. We worked closely throughout the project with a landscape architect who served as an expert from our community.
In addition to adding new equipment in the park, we hosted a grand re-opening of the playground for the community. We assembled the playground equipment at the end of September, with a grand-reopening in the first week of October.
We also met with the city officials to learn more about the park and how we can partner together to bring this updated playground to our community. The city officials answered many of our questions and gave us a lot to think about. We found out the current area of the playground and drew up a base map with our layout ideas for the placement of the playground equipment. We were very excited to share our ideas.
Throughout the project, we spoke at city council, parks and recreation, and at school board meetings. We made flyers inviting community members to events to learn more about the project, as well as an invitation inviting the community to the grand reopening of the playground. This project was supported through the Rural Schools Collaborative. We thank them for supporting place-based education!
How did this positively impact community? How was it shared?
Reflection