"Envision Your Future" Project
Jennifer Jastremsky, UPSO Secretary, introduced the night’s special guest Marilyn Clark. Mrs. Clark is with the National Energy Foundation, and will be explaining the Envision Your Future program to us. She will tell us how the program works, as well as how CA+P students can help.
Marilyn explained that the National Energy Foundation (NEF) is a national organization headquartered here in Utah, which specializes in providing educational programs across North America. These programs deal mostly with the natural sciences.
The Envision Your Future (EYF) program was piloted locally in 2003 in seven elementary schools, three middle schools and three high schools. In 2004 that number expanded and there were 50 teachers region wide that participated in the program, 46 of which completed it. The program costs $150 per teacher. This includes training and all the supplies for the curriculum. (Note: We will not be buying anything; we will be assisting teachers who already have the supplies.)
The EYF is a four week program which uses problem solving skills to study various issues facing our society. These issues include the environment, walkable communities, sensitive lands, animals, transportation modes, recycled lands, water supply, slopes, population growth, mixed use housing, etc. The program also includes a chip game (charrette) which requires the students to use what they have learned in an interactive game. Students are put in groups of 5-6 and are faced with problem, specifically a rapidly growing community. This community has a population of 3,000 people but will be gaining 10,000 more in the next 10 years. The students are asked to come up with a way to sustain the community while still finding a place to house the additional people, while also thinking about quality of life issues. The game also includes scenario cards. These cards assign a different role to each student. Some will play government officials, or farmers, while others will play developers. The students are required to think about what the roles and interests of these individual people are in the development process.
Most teachers spend about 12 to 15 class hours teaching the program, depending on the time they have available. Two to three days are spent on the chip game. High school AP teachers usually teach it at the end of the semester, most others teach it in the spring time. Most teach the program in the afternoon.
The first part of the program that we will have to participate in will be the training. This takes about three hours, and is the same training that all the teachers in the program have to go through. The training may be shorter for us simply because we know about planning already. After we get trained in exactly what the program is, we will be able to go help the teachers.
The biggest need the EYF program is experiencing is with the elementary schools and helping to supervise the chip game.
We will be coming into the classroom and teaching the students about planning and as they play the chip game point out some important issues they might not have thought of that affect quality of growth and the built environment. We will be going out in groups of two.
