Architecture Project Builds on Students’ Curiosity of the World around Them
Jan. 20, 2012
Students in Jere Lorenzen-Strait’s kindergarten class at School-Within-School @ Peabody made their own scale model of the neighborhood in which their school is located as part of a semester-long project that explored architecture and urban design.
Photo courtesy of Jere Lorenzen-Strait
A kindergartner in Jere Lorenzen-Strait’s class at School-Within-School @ Peabody creates a model of a building in the school’s neighborhood.
Photo courtesy of Jere Lorenzen-Strait
A kindergartner in Jere Lorenzen-Strait’s class at School-Within-School @ Peabody sketches the architectural features of a building in the school’s neighborhood.
Photo courtesy of Jere Lorenzen-Strait
Students in Jere Lorenzen-Strait’s kindergarten class at School-Within-School @ Peabody mixed paint colors to match the architectural features of buildings in the school’s neighborhood.
Photo courtesy of Jere Lorenzen-Strait
When the kindergartners in Jere Lorenzen-Strait’s class step out of School-Within-School @ Peabody and into the neighborhood surrounding them, they don’t just see buildings, houses and parks anymore. They observe the arches, domes, columns and trusses of neighborhood structures – and they see their world in a different way.
Through a semester-long project last fall that explored the concepts of architecture and urban design, Lorenzen-Strait took his students from the classroom – where they discovered the terminology of the trade, practiced sketching architectural elements and learned how to measure and navigate – to Stanton Park where they developed a plan to replicate the neighborhood in a map and a scale model of the area.
“This architecture project helps students see the details of the world around them and to be thoughtful about it,” said Lorenzen-Strait, a second-year teacher at School-Within-School and member of the Chancellor’s Teachers Cabinet. “You see a different awareness.”
Lorenzen-Strait said the idea for the project developed as a mapping project last school year with his pre-kindergarten students who were exploring spacial relationships between themselves and other objects.
Thanks to a grant through the Washington Architectural Foundation’s Architecture in the Schools program, Lorenzen-Strait brought in an architect this year to reinforce concepts throughout the semester.
Architecture in the Schools matches volunteer architects with public school teachers to enrich students’ learning experience, reinforce core academic skills, and teach children how to exercise their analytical and creative skills through the architectural design process, according to the foundation’s website.
Since it began in 1992, Architecture in the Schools has reached more than 10,000 children in every wards of the District.
“Architecture in the Schools combines the talents of District of Columbia Public School teachers with the professional skills of Architects to create a dynamic learning experience for students,” said architect Mary Kay Lanzillotta, director of the Architecture in the Schools program.
“Our work at School-Within-School @ Peabody was an excellent example of what we strive to achieve in the AIS program,” Lanzillotta said. “Children broadened their understanding of their own neighborhood and made interdisciplinary connections to math, social studies and language arts skills.”
Through the program, students learned architectural terminology, including: structural elements, drawing tools and building materials. They practiced sketching, color rendering and model building. They used their bodies to act out structural elements. And they learned how to measure with a ruler and navigate with a compass.
Then, students ventured out of the classroom for further discovery. On a field trip to the National Building Museum, they planned and constructed a city. Inspired by this project and the arches of Reggio Emilia, Italy, students also explored the many arches throughout the school neighborhood.
“The class put together all these concepts and experiences for their final project by collaboratively making a local park map and models of the buildings that surround the park,” Lorenzen-Strait said.
Students walked the perimeter of Stanton Park, observed the details of each building, and sketched a building of their choosing. Then, each student built a model of their building using recycled goods and plaster cast.
“The kids mixed their own paint colors, painted their buildings, and added the architectural details,” Lorenzen-Strait said. “The neighborhood map and models synthesized the semester’s lessons on architecture and urban planning.”
Dan Gordon, director of the DCPS Office of Academic Planning and Support, said Lorenzen-Strait’s project is a “great approach to lesson planning” that incorporates academic and early childhood education concepts in a way that engages students.
“This is project-based authentic exploration of content that’s relevant to their lives and their interests,” Gordon said, noting how the teacher determined what he wanted the students to know, then back-mapped to determine how he wanted them to learn the concepts he was teaching. Getting them out of the classroom to connect what they learned to the world they know.
“It’s a wonderful recipe for their learning,” Gordon said. “The kids will remember this experience for the rest of their lives. Instead of reading the word ‘architecture,’ they had an authentic experience that will change the way they see things.”
Lorenzen-Strait said the project not only embedded literacy and mathematics but also gave students a chance to learn what they wanted to learn in a way that broadened their interest and kept them engaged.
“We’re in such a standards-driven environment, which has a role in education, but you can’t ignore the experience of joy in learning,” Lorenzen-Strait said. “Beyond the importance of literacy and math, in terms of subject area, I think the greatest gift I can give my kids is that they see themselves as learners. That will serve them far beyond the two years I have them.”
To read more about Jere Lorenzen-Strait’s architecture and urban design project and view images, visit schoolwithinschool.org.
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