A longstanding host for workplace site visits that the Consortium organizes for schools, Urban Design Associates (UDA) finds working with students both fun for staff and an opportunity to expand public understanding of urban planning.
“It engages our staff to think outside the box a little bit and they just enjoy it,” said Lori Sipes, UDA’s Marketing & Recruiting Coordinator. “When you’re not working for a client and you’re teaching someone about what you do, it brings a little bit of a different passion.”
“A lot of people don’t know what urban planning is in general,” Sipes added, “so I think it’s opening kids’ minds to understanding how cities and places are built and what the process is.”
UDA has long collaborated with the Consortium to host high school students. With our increasing emphasis on career exploration in the primary grades, however, our most recent site visit there involved 5th and 6th graders from East Allegheny School District’s Logan Elementary School.
Sipes said planning the visit wasn’t hugely different—the presentations and activities were just somewhat less detailed. She found the younger students “even a little more outgoing than the high school kids, maybe because they’re not at an age to overthink what they’re going to say.”
In addition to having staff explain their jobs and talk about the field of urban planning, UDA always makes site visits interactive, giving students opportunities to try their hands at planning. They brainstorm ideas and give input as stakeholders would in a community planning process. They also work with site plans using the kinds of place-markers and model buildings employed in an actual design process.
“The kids were completely engaged,” Sipes said, noting they offered ideas for businesses and entertainment ranging from a theater and racetrack to a balloon parade. “They even presented their ideas, and it was amazing to see the creativity.”
Their teacher, Tracy Yusko, who captured the visit in a slideshow, said it was an experience the students won’t soon forget.
“They’re still talking about it,” she said in a follow-up email.
“They were very engaged during the entire trip,” she added, noting that one student already has undertaken a planning process to find better uses for areas in the school.
