What do you like about your neighbourhood? What don’t you like about it?
These are the types of questions kids will be asking to get them started on an exploration of urban planning in the new summer camp called Build Your Own City at Capilano University.
Instructor Christina Rowan says first and foremost she wants the camp to be fun.
And while the educational component is certainly important, “to me it’s about teaching what can sometimes be a complex topic in a very fun and creative way,” she notes.
Rowan, who has an educational and professional background in urban planning, helped design the camp, which is for kids ages nine to 12.
“We’re looking for kids probably who are really creative and inquisitive and interested in cities and how cities work,” she says.
The program will start with a general introduction to urban planning and then move on to the process of how to design a city.
Although in real life the bulk of planning is about improving existing cities and neighbourhoods and not necessarily creating new ones, the principles are the same.
So kids in this camp will design their own ideal city through an incremental process.
They’ll start by defining the edges of their city. Rowan explains that the edges are things such as the mountains and the ocean, for example.
Campers will start with discussions, games, and activities, and then move into sketching and drawing their city.
Once their edges are defined, they will look at how to incorporate things like public spaces and landmarks, places to have fun and hang out. They will also look a bit at different land uses, such as residential and commercial, and learn how to know where houses and businesses go. Some land use control, such as zoning, will also be introduced.
“While I want them to be really imaginative and creative and I want it to be really fun and their ideal city, they still have to realize that sometimes you just can’t do everything you want,” explains Rowan.
They will also talk a bit about transportation and how it ties in to a green, sustainable city.
”Kids have a great perspective because kids don’t drive. How do they want to get around? Do we need more bike paths and do we need more sidewalks, and should the sidewalks be bigger and should there be a park closer to my house?”
Kids will build a 3-D component, such as a landmark or building façade for their city, and there will also be a written component in which they’ll talk about why they made certain decisions about their city.
“What the kids can get out of this is that it gives them an understanding into what goes into designing a new development, or a city or a block; they’ll begin to look at it in a new and different way. So by understanding how it affects them as citizens they’ll become more invested in their city or their neighbourhood.”
It encourages them to ask questions such as why is that building so tall? Why are those houses being torn down? And why do we have to drive to get to a park? And that’s how they start to be more involved in their community, notes Rowan.
There are so many different issues to explore with urban planning, she adds.
“I hope they discover what’s important to them”
For more information about summer camps at Capilano University visit capilanou.ca.
This story was originally published in a special section of the North Shore News focused on summer camps.
