In honor of National Community Planning Month, the American Planning Association (“APA”) invited Urban Planners from around the State of Illinois to participate in an educational outreach program geared for middle school students. Two planners from the City of Champaign participated in the event, which took place on October 10th at Bloomington Junior High School. Lacey Rains Lowe and Jeff Marino, helped lead two sixth grade classes through a charrette about what makes a great community. There were eight planners from around the state that participated, and the 60 students were broken into eight groups. Each group was tasked with creating a city, and the planners spoke with the students about what types of land uses are located within a city. The students looked at where those uses would be located, and how people would move between the different land uses. At the conclusion of the project, the groups presented their cities to the rest of the class and spoke about what made them great. For more information, clink the link below to see an article published in the Bloomington-Normal Pantagraph.
Sixth Graders try their hand at city planning!
