1. Organizing. Playground designers meet with the custodian and principal, teachers, students, and parents. This team reviews the design curriculum, makes a schedule for these sessions, reviews a packet of park designs and generates a list of what the students can and cannot include in their designs for the park. This team creates a simple map of entrances, exits, delivery pathways, available areas for the new design, and any specific concerns of the principal and custodian. The architect measures the site and begins to create a digital base map.
Week 1 observing. See a slideshow of green and interactive parks, playgrounds, gardens, green roofs and public spaces Each class: Who is the Design Team?: Representatives of Students, Teachers, Parents, School administration and staff, Program Director/Manager, PD consultant, Landscape Architect. 10 min. Go outside, use park, observe school day use, surrounding neighborhood, condition of the schoolyard, sun/shade, slope, size, shape, and living things. Afterschool: Play on playground, observe afterschool use & surrounding neighborhood.
Week 2 Learning more about the people who use the schoolyard: Each class (Indoors or out): 1. Students receive a Design Sketchbook 5 min. 2. Brief review: list of design principles, and PD process 5 min 3. Hands on: Play Model Game (25 minutes) 4. Discuss questions for a brief playground survey, for the school/community. 5 min. Survey is written, printed, and distributed in this first week, and returned the next week. Afterschool: In small groups: discuss PD process, timeline, budget, play Model Game, discuss 3D model, prepare and distribute survey.
Week 3: Learning more about the schoolyard. Each class: (outdoors) Meet classes and dismiss classes from schoolyard 1. Brief review: list of design principles, and PD process. 5 min 2. Class breaks into 2 groups. Activity A: Half the class plays, the other half observes the way they are using the site. They relate what the students observe to design principles. They make notes in their sketchbooks about what people are doing and where. They note age, gender. 20 min. Activity B: The half of the class that played before now measure the site perimeter. The group that observed before now plays. Each group measures one side. Students record measurements in their sketchbooks. 20 min. Afterschool: Play outdoors, observe play, observe and chalk shadows, measure site. Review and discuss survey results, desig n principles, budget, timeline, and PD process. Ongoing: Survey results, as they come in each week, are posted in each classroom.