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Outreach and Engagement Awards

Ohio State University Nominated Programs

The following 2009 Ohio State nominees for the regional Outreach Scholarship W.K. Kellogg Foundation Engagement Award deal with improvement of K-16 education.

Educational Improvement

• Astronomy at COSI
• Haiti Empowerment Project
• Urban Arts Space K-12 Programs
• Program for Arts & Humanities Development
• Community Commitment 2008
• Planners’ Day in School
• Celebrate the Legacy: MLK Day Celebration
• Pride and Life Skills Mentoring
• Student Life Student Internship Program
• InterACT
• Blueprint:College

Astronomy at COSI

Ohio State Partner: Department of Astronomy, College of Mathematical and Physical Sciences
Community Partner: COSI Columbus
Photo: Astronomy activity at COSI

Over the last several years, the Ohio State Astronomy Department has teamed with COSI experts in informal science education to offer education and outreach programs for middle school students and teachers, high school students, and the general public. This effort has involved several activities. Based on the responses (including statistical analysis) these programs have been quite successful. We have reached students, teachers, and the public all whom have learned about, been awestruck by, and excited in the wonders of astronomical discoveries. Ohio State astronomy and COSI offer combination Professional Development (for teachers) and Field Trip (for students) events for middle schools in the Columbus area. During the school year, we hold (on average) two of these events per month and have so far had 50 schools take part and have reached over 400 students. This program in ongoing and, in fact, there is a backlog of middle schools interested in attending. A diverse set of schools including public, parochial, underprivileged, and home school students from the greater Columbus area have taken part. These events begin with an interactive lecture given by an Ohio State astronomy faculty member designed to teach basic astronomical/physical principals needed to explain an exciting astronomical discovery. For example, one program teaches three key concepts: gravity, spectroscopy, and the Doppler Effect to show how over 300 planets have been discovered around stars other than the Sun. During the lecture activity, students witness and take part in several demonstrations and ask numerous and wide-ranging questions. After the lecture, the students are led by COSI professionals experienced with informal science education. The student activities include, to name one, hands-on experiments and measurements related to the size of planets, moon, and our solar system. At the same time, the middle school teachers are given individual training specific to their curriculum needs by the Ohio State Astronomy Professor. This access to a professional astronomer continues after the event itself since the teachers often contact the Ohio State Astronomy Department faculty throughout the school year. Ohio State Astronomy faculty also work intimately with the well-known COSI Academy: a group of high school students highly interested in pursing science careers. In addition to question-and-answer workshops with these bright students, Ohio State Astronomy will host an academy trip to the Astronomy Planetarium and our rooftop telescope. The faculty/student interaction is also composed of descriptions of the actual career paths followed by research/teaching faculty: the lessons learned along with advice to the students than can be given. COSI has special nights devoted to the sciences during which the general public has free admission. Astronomy faculty has set up booths, displays, and activity carts on several of these occasions. The professors who take part field questions from children of all ages and their parents about Ohio State Astronomy Research. In the upcoming summers the Ohio State astronomy department plans to give two-day Teacher Workshops in astronomy activities. This training consists of new and illuminating demonstrations, hands-on activities, and web-based interactive sites the teachers can incorporate in their lesson plans.

Impact Statements

• To combine the astronomical knowledge and teaching abilities of Ohio State Astronomy Department faculty with the expertise of COSI professionals in informal science education for educational activities. The goals of the activities are to instruct middle/high school students in exciting astronomical discoveries and also to inspire them to consider careers in science and technology fields. An additional goal is to provide professional development for middle school science teachers. This training involves keeping their science knowledge up to date, working with experiments and demonstrations they can use in their classrooms, and providing access to research-level Astronomy faculty.
• The findings of this program show that it is consistently meeting the goals. One measure of success is the feedback received from students, teachers, and the public. This feedback is usually quite positive and is always useful in restructuring the program to better meet the participants’ needs. For the middle school classes who attend our activities, the findings are also quantitative. Pre and post exams are given to each student to measure how well they learned the material. Statistical analysis of the results shows that for the events given so far, the increase in student knowledge has increased significantly. But in the broader sense, the difference the project makes is an awareness, appreciation, and knowledge of the excitement embodied in astronomical ideas. Participants leave our activities more interested in looking up at the sky for themselves and a better understanding of astronomical news stories and images.
• The findings of our project are used both by the instructors (Astronomy faculty and COSI professionals) and the participants. The instructors take the qualitative and quantitative results to improve present programs but to plan future activities. To date, the findings indicate that our program is quite successful. The implications for what the participants get from our program are wide ranging. For some it may be the igniting of a spark of interest in astronomy, for others it may be actually learning something about always fascinating field. But for a few, it is hoped that their participation in our activities will result in students majoring in science disciplines when they go to college and perhaps having careers in scientific education, research, or public activity. If you ask any scientist, they will tell you of a person or event that got them interested in asking the question “Why does that work that way?” Perhaps our activities will provide such a service to the public.

Haiti Empowerment Project

Ohio State Partner:  College of Education and Human Ecology, School of Teaching and Learning, Mansfield campus; OSU Keep Books Program
Community Partners: CREFI (Center for Research in Education, Formation and Instruction), Université Caraibe, representatives from various U.S. universities, Services International Foundation (SIF), Benito School (Gallette, Haiti), and Faith Academy (Haiti)
Links: project website
onCampus article

According to the Academic Plan, one Ohio State core value is “making the world a better place and opening the world to our students.” The Haiti Empowerment Project demonstrates this core value. Participating faculty helps meet the needs of a developing country then opens a door to world culture by sharing their experiences. The Haiti Empowerment Project brings together the intellectual and material resources of Ohio State with Haitian counterparts to collaboratively develop and implement culturally relevant professional training. The Empowerment Project has evolved from work with pilot schools, to working with inservice and preservice education, and now addressing the unique needs of Haitian teacher education through partnerships with Haitian universities and other nongovernmental organizations. This project has produced an equally rewarding international collaboration model driven by a mutual desire for educational transformation. Collaborating partners working alongside The Ohio State University in this innovative project are CREFI (Center for Research in Education, Formation and Instruction), Université Caraibe, representatives from various U.S. Universities, Services International Foundation (SIF), Benito School (Gallette, Haiti), and Faith Academy (Haiti). Lab Schools Program: Our two lab schools provide opportunities for OSU faculty to field-test ideas. Teachers at these schools assist with the reflection and revision of ideas on instruction in Haitian schools. Through this process, innovative, research-based best practices are brought to a larger audience through the University Collaboration Program. OSU instructor and Mid-Ohio Writing Project director, Cheryl Canada, leads a focused aspect of this work in the area of writing and literature-based instruction, integrating best-practices in the lab schools. University Collaboration Program: OSU faculty and graduate students teach 15-hour workshops and seminars for two university partners: CREFI (Center for Research in Education, Formation and Instruction) an extension of the University of Notre Dame Haiti and Université Caraibe, a teacher education college in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. These offerings meet the needs of our community partners and provide faculty in remote areas of Haiti that are difficult for our partners to staff. Participants from partner universities attend the seminar courses and then revise and replicate the course in other areas of Haiti. Haitian Keep Books Program: Haitian Creole children’s literature is scarce. Dr. Charles Hancock leads the Haitian Keep Books Program. The larger OSU Keep Books Program is a model, internationally recognized program. The Haitian Keep Books Program will use the established, research-based Keep Books reading process in our lab schools to inform the use and distribution with a wider audience in Haiti. This program is currently in the pilot stage. Haitian Case Study Program: The newest aspect of our work is creating video cases. We are working with high-functioning Haitian schools and our lab schools to record Haitian classroom vignettes to use in university instruction. These cases will show innovative methods of instruction in Haitian classroom. The Haitian Case Study Program is currently in the development stage. Funding support for this work started with the Mansfield campus and has continued through an Excellence in Engagement grant from the Ohio State Office of University Outreach and Engagement.

Impact Statements

• Lab Schools Program Goal: To improve instruction in participating rural schools through implementation of research-based instructional strategies and enhanced student outcome. Observations and demonstrations of classroom practices that include cooperative learning, literature-based instruction, and constructivist methods throughout the curriculum are observed during three weeklong site visits to the schools. Both lab schools had 100% passage on the national sixth-grade test in 2008. Classroom teachers from the two lab schools are developing a professional learning community to share teaching practices and problem solve on issues of education. This type of collaboration among teachers is uncommon as the culture is competitive by nature due to limited resources. The work in the lab schools is used to inform the courses taught at the universities. These courses are then replicated and the practices are disseminated throughout the teacher education community.
• University Collaboration Program Goal: To increase the number of opportunities for professional growth in the urban and rural areas of Haiti-U.S. faculty collaborations The Haiti Empowerment Project serves the teachers in remote areas of Haiti by working in connection with the Haitian university partners. The Haiti Empowerment Project has staffed courses in the villages and cities of Anse d’Hainault, Jeremie, Port-au-Prince, and Montrouis. The Université Caraibe is able to provide a teacher education program in Montrouis due in part to the availability of our faculty to travel to that area. By working with our community partners, the need for U.S. faculty will someday be obsolete. The teachers trained in these areas will then be able to staff the teacher education courses on their own. The elimination of need for outside assistance and in-country sustainability is the goal of all technical assistance.
• “Making the world a better place and opening the world to our students.” Goal: Creating awareness of other cultures and educational systems for faculty, teachers, and students in the OSU community through short-term experiences in Haiti. Faculty and graduate students from The Ohio State University have taught nine courses in the field of education (some repeated in several areas of the country). Courses have been developed and taught in the areas of Foreign Language Instruction, Mathematics Methods, Education Project Development, Reading, Reading Theory, Science Education, and Children’s Literature. A total of nine faculty and seven graduate students have traveled to Haiti. In addition, three retired teachers from Ohio have assisted in the course and professional development instruction. Through the participating faculty and graduated students untold numbers of OSU and K-12 students have learned of the unique educational situations and struggles of our Haitian neighbors. One graduate-level course, Education in Developing Countries, was taught in the summer of 2007. Participating faculty have written papers on the work in Haiti and presented at international conferences (Denmark, Bosnia, and Italy), on Haitian Children»s Literature, International Collaborations, and Cooperative Learning in Developing Countries. The lessons learned through this work have been used in the development of a Collaborative Work Model for developed and developing countries and in the implementation of a new National Writing Project in South Africa (directed by Cheryl Canada) to begin in the summer of 2009.

Urban Arts Space K-12 Programs

Ohio State Partners: College of the Arts Departments of Art; Art Education; Dance; Industrial, Interior, and Visual Communication Design; History of Art; Theatre; Music
Community Partners: Africentric School (Columbus City Schools); Columbus Alternative High School (Columbus City Schools); Columbus School for Girls; Ohio Equities; Columbus Downtown Development Corporation
Links: K-12 Outreach at Urban Arts Space
Photo: Columbus School for Girls students in the UAS rooftop garden

The OSU Urban Arts Space (UAS) is a 10,000 square foot multipurpose arts space located in the heart of downtown Columbus, Ohio in the historic Lazarus Building. It serves as a storefront for the university, bridging the artistic accomplishments of the community and the university. The UAS designs programming for all ages around its exhibition and performance schedule. It is one of four of its kind in the country, serving as a model for placing the arts off campus, in an urban setting with focused programming for the community. About the Space and its Programs: Our vision for the UAS is to challenge our ways of thinking about the performing and visual arts and their role in our everyday lives through conversation, making, and experimentation. Our mission is to bridge the university and the community, to serve as an arts laboratory for faculty and community artists, and to be a professional launching pad for Ohio State students. Based on the vision and mission, it is intended to function as a laboratory or launching pad for student artists, scholars, and curators, who receive invaluable experience by pursuing their chosen career within an environment that crosses between the University and the community. The space functions similarly to a teaching hospital, in that much of the administrative work is performed by student interns from Columbus City Schools and Ohio State, providing them with real-world experiences. Although many events, for example gallery tours, artists’ talks, and readings of literary works related to exhibits, are open to the public at large, we also focus on educational partnerships with a growing number of local schools, both public and private. K-12 School Tours: Our tours are interactive, in depth, tie in to the Ohio Academic Content Standards, and can include guided art making, writing exercises, and other interdisciplinary activities. In addition, we offer preparatory educational materials for teachers to help establish a dialogue with their curriculum prior to the visit. School Partnerships: In addition to tours we have K-12 learning partnerships with Columbus School for Girls (CSG) and the Africentric School in Columbus. These partnerships have produced interdisciplinary projects and learning experiences as well as opportunities for community engagement. For example, UAS partnered with CSG for the Ways of Knowing Water Exhibition. The students visited the gallery space, toured the Lazarus building’s rooftop garden, and learned about water conservation. In addition they participated in a sketching and writing response exercise, creating their own artworks and stories about the exhibition. The partnership continues as CSG researches and begins the process of creating their own rooftop garden for the CSG school building and integrating the theme of water and conservation into their 2008-2009 school-wide curricula.

Impact Statements

• The Columbus Alternative High School (CAHS) Internships at UAS focus on providing arts administration experiences for high school students through participation in day-to-day operations, staff meetings, and a focused project. During the yearlong internship the students work with UAS staff and faculty on projects related to communications, programs, exhibitions and high school outreach. To date, the interns working in the space have enhanced our capacity for social networking (facebook, myspace, blogging), assisted with logistics for programs, and aided in exhibition documentation and inventory. These high school interns have not only provided administrative support but also shared their unique perspective and understanding to develop a proposal for high school outreach. As we move forward with these efforts, we are confident that our programming for high school audiences will be relevant and valuable since it was peer designed. We plan to continue our internship program with CAHS and the current interns’ feedback will be invaluable for structuring future high school internship opportunities.
• The Columbus School for Girls (CSG) Partnership focuses on aligning UAS graduate interns with CSG students and teachers to provide unique educational opportunities that explore the sciences through the arts. In collaboration with the CSG arts and sciences teachers, we created an interactive experience to address local environmental issues by using our LEED certified building and our exhibition, Ways of Knowing Water, which discussed local watershed and water conservation through the arts. Because of the work of this initiative, the students are now lobbying their school to build a green rooftop and the teachers have incorporated these experiences into their yearlong curriculum. The success with this partnership has resulted in funding for future collaborations with CSG and the appointment of a graduate intern as Sustainability Coordinator.
• The Africentric School Partnership focuses on connecting our faculty and graduate interns with Africentric’s teachers and students to deliver the Ohio standards through our exhibition programming. In conjunction with our international exhibition, Midnight Robbers: The Artists of Notting Hill, London artist Carl Gabriel and co-curators Lesley Ferris and Ruth Tompsett visited the fourth and fifth grade art classes at Africentric for a workshop where the students made their own masks. These students then visited the space where they toured the exhibition with Ferris and Tompsett and also had a Caribbean dance experience led by a graduate intern. These experiences culminated in a closing processional for the exhibition that was a spectacular evening for students, their families and our downtown neighbors. The students who worked with Gabriel wore their masks and were joined by the Africentric Nubian Dance and Drum Company, comprised of middle school and high school students. The festivities also included costumed performances by members of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Parade the Circle and a storytelling activity with one of the Africentric teachers. Based on the results of this pilot program, we now create lesson plans, power point presentations, and tailored tours based on the work in the space. All these materials are designed to meet K-12 state standards for the arts as outlined in the Ohio Academic Content Standards. We have since developed relationships with more than 700 central Ohio teachers, providing them with access to these materials for each new exhibition.

Program for Arts and Humanities Development

Ohio State Partners: College of the Arts, College of Humanities
Community Partners: Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), Summer Research Opportunities Program; undergraduates from historically underrepresented groups
Links: website
Photo: Students learning about PHD program benefits

The Program for Arts and Humanities Development (PHD) is a research and mentoring program that serves Arts and Humanities undergraduate majors from historically underrepresented groups. The first program of its kind in the nation, the PHD provides guided coursework, mentoring, and cohort building in the Arts and Humanities over 9 weeks in the summer, targeting students with sophomore or junior standing. During its inaugural summer (2008), 14 students participated. The program has quickly become a national model. The COH-PHD was designed with three goals in mind: diversify the professoriate, facilitate the successful application and admission of highly qualified graduate applicants from underrepresented groups in the Arts and Humanities to Ohio State and other graduate programs, and establish momentum toward the development of a sustainable infrastructure of support and encouragement. To achieve these goals, the PHD developed target outcomes for the summer portion of the program: (1) create a high degree of cohort cohesion and sense of community; (2) create a sense of investment in the project from among our mentors, emphasizing the difference between mentoring and advising; (3) develop students’ sense of moving from the position of knowledge consumption to knowledge production; (4) enhance students» sense of their location within the disciplinary terrain of the arts and humanities; and (5) enhance students’ sense of Ohio State as a welcoming institution that can meet intellectual and professional needs. The PHD implemented an organic curriculum that was able to accommodate the various needs and interests of the students, while introducing them to ways of thinking about academia and their places within it in innovative ways. The curriculum also created a sense of cohesion between program and students, producing a greater investment in the course and its outcomes. The first PHD summer institute should be judged a success as it has already had a measurable impact connected with these outcome goals. Within the cohort itself—Supporting Arts and Humanities based research projects and including guest speakers from across the college in twice-weekly classroom meetings, the program fostered interdisciplinary research and intellectual conversations so stimulating that the PHD students took up the themes with other students studying at Ohio State for the summer. With other summer research initiatives at Ohio State and within the CIC—Students were able to present their research both in a national setting at the annual CIC Summer Research Opportunities (SROP) conference hosted by Michigan State University and locally before Ohio State faculty and their peers. Other CIC institutions running SROP programming have inquired about the PHD structure and the particulars of its emergence at OSU. With other humanities-based summer research initiatives across the country—Three of five PHD students who were ready to apply to graduate school applied to graduate programs at Ohio State with the support of faculty within those departments. This represents a significant immediate yield of 60%. Moreover, the program was one of a few humanities-oriented summer research programs to be part of a featured panel at the December 2008 Modern Language National Conference.

Impact Statements

• The PHD created an environment wherein students were fully immersed in interdisciplinary conversations led by faculty from across the Arts and Humanities.
• The PHD prompted such interest at a national conference that the CIC Summer Research Opportunities Program (SROP) is now altering its own format to match the PHD, and the CIC national conference will alter its presentation format to accommodate panel presentations and performances from Arts and Humanities participants.
• Six of the program’s nine seniors already have elected to go directly to graduate school. Of that six, four (67%) have applied to graduate programs at Ohio State with the support of faculty within those departments. One of the nine is an Ohio State senior that the Linguistics Department has encouraged to get her graduate degree at another Big 10 institution so that, upon completion of her PhD, she can return as a faculty member.

Community Commitment 2008: Focusing on the Children of Our Communities

Ohio State Partners: Ohio Union, Office of Student Life; Office of Economic Access
Community Partners: over 100 community agencies, including retirement communities, Columbus City Schools, Keep Columbus Beautiful, Animal rescue organizations, mentoring programs and many more
Links: website

The Ohio Union has been coordinating Community Commitment for 11 years. On September 23, 2008, we completed our 11th Community Commitment with new programmatic features. Between 1,200 and 1,500 students participate in community service projects throughout the city of Columbus on this day during Welcome Week. Students arrive in the morning and following the registration process (and new to this year’s program, a brief speaker), the students depart to different agencies throughout the city of Columbus to work on service projects for these different agencies. This past year we reached out to collaborate with Columbus City Schools and the Know How to Go Campaign (http://www.knowhow2go.com) to bring different community members together to make the program stronger. With students participating in about 4 hours of service, Ohio State students provide between 4,800 and 6,000 hours of service in only 1 day. This program encourages Ohio State students to continue their dedication to service throughout their experiences at Ohio State. Our program is developed to collaborate with over 100 community agencies in order to extend the land-grant mission of our institution. Ohio State students work to serve these agencies in order to further the mission of Ohio State as well as these agencies. Our goal for this program is continue to benefit our community partners, as well as create learning outcomes for students. In addition to serving in the community, students were trained in messages about how to get to college that they can share with the youth in our community and become “Access Advocates” for Columbus City Schools. Research shows that youth (grades 4-10) are more likely to retain information about how to get to college if it is shared with them by a college student rather than a teacher or administrator. Through our partnership with Columbus City Schools, we hoped our students would be able to have an impact on the youth in these schools and their understanding of college access. We plan to continue to partner with the Office of Economic Access in future programming in order to continue teaching college students about how to become an Access Advocate. We believe the partnership between our two offices and Columbus City Schools can lead to more inner-city school students having an understanding of how to get to college, which in turn will improve education among all members of Ohio’s communities and increase the number of students enrolled in colleges all across the state of Ohio.

Impact Statement

Community Commitment 2008: Focusing on the Children of Our Communities was redesigned this year in order to create stronger college student learning outcomes in the relationship between volunteering and impacting our community for the common good. We also hoped students would and will continue to share the messages about how to get to college with youth (grades 4-10). Through our program we found students gained a better understanding of the importance of service as it relates to social justice initiatives. Results of this year’s surveys showed that students were more likely to participate in future service projects and were more likely to share this experience with their friends and peers. These findings will be used to ensure a stronger program for the future. We also plan to continue to partner with the Office of Economic Access and with Columbus City Schools.

Planners’ Day in School

Ohio State Partners: City and Regional Planning, Knowlton School of Architecture, College of Engineering; Office of Academic Affairs, P-12 Project (initially)
Community Partners: Columbus City Schools
Links: handbook
Photo: Planners’ Day activity

The primary purpose of this project has been to engage middle school students in the world around them through an understanding of city and regional planning. The project has brought graduate students in The Ohio State University’s City and Regional Planning (CRP) program into middle school classrooms to discuss what planning is, what planners do, and how someone becomes a planner. The effort has been done as a 1-day and as a 2-day program involving two facilitated map-oriented exercises. The first exercise involves large printouts of a community map in which the school (and youngsters) reside. Youngsters are put into groups to locate key features on the map (e.g., school, stores, homes) and then answer questions about what they like or dislike about where they live, and what they would want to see more (or less) of in the community. This is similar to the formal visioning process conducted by planners while formulating a community comprehensive plan to guide future development. The second exercise uses large generic maps along with neighborhood model type items (e.g., houses, trees, other buildings) and markers. The youngsters are divided into smaller groups where they worked with a CRP student facilitator to plan the area together. Students then explore what elements they want to have in their town and where they want things to be located. Discussion follows to explore the reasons for the choices they made (e.g., I want the park in that spot so I can walk to it). These exercises coincide well with sixth-grade social studies curricula addressing regional change and consequences of change. In the 2-day program, the children also have constructed a “mental map” of their neighborhood as homework between the sessions. Since its inception, this program has reached out to some of the more challenged and challenging schools in the Columbus public district, including Crestview Middle School and Monroe Middle School, each of which included working with special education classes and students. The program has reached over 200 middle school students thus far and has engaged nearly 30 graduate planning students. The pilot effort served as the foundation for another faculty member’s work with children and planning in Mississippi. Anecdotal information passed along from teachers and student liaisons has been extremely positive. The middle school students gain insight into why things change in their neighborhoods and how planning and planners work. The exercises help build critical thinking as students determine what neighborhood elements to place where on a map, and think about why they want certain elements in specific locations. We are hopeful that it will help students become involved in the public decisions affecting their neighborhood. This project represents an initial foray for a Columbus middle school class to become aware of and involved in planning, and it sets the foundation for a more engaged youth citizenry. We are currently working on our 2009 effort and have initialized discussions with art teachers and colleagues from the Wexner Center to explore how we may combine our areas of interest.

Impact Statements

• Goal: to expose middle school children to the field of planning and gain an understanding of how things develop in the world around them. We also wanted to institutionalize the effort both in the schools and in CRP. First, and perhaps most important for the goal of institutionalizing the Planners’ Day in School (PDIS) process, a class lesson was created that is in keeping with the state-level social studies curriculum for sixth-grade students. The lesson is the first portion of a book that will provide interested planning programs with the basic tools to establish a PDIS program. The initial lesson has been enhanced and revised with input from students and teachers. As an example, we expanded the curricula to cover 2 days. In terms of the institutionalization of PDIS for the CRP program, map and model materials are the responsibility of the CRP Student Association, which served as the organizational liaison for the CRP student volunteers. Additionally, an independent study opportunity has been created for a graduate student to serve as the PDIS coordinator throughout the academic year. This student organizes volunteers, helps to run the training sessions, and coordinates school visits with interested schools. This year’s students are exploring the Wexner relations.
• Goal: expose children to the planning field and enhance their understanding of why things happen in the world around them. The impact of the pilot program on the middle school students and faculty is currently difficult to quantify. Although surveys were distributed, they were not available for later collection due in part to the closure of Crestview Middle School. During the sessions, however, students were engaged and excited about the exercises as evidenced in the classroom photos. Additionally, verbal teacher feedback was positive with one teacher commenting that his students (special education class) had never been so talkative about a class exercise. The impact of the program on the graduate student liaisons was determined via an online survey made available after the pilot sessions. Thirteen students completed the survey (56%). The survey consisted of 14 open- and closed-ended questions about their experience and suggestions for the PDIS program. Respondents indicated that they volunteered primarily because “It seemed like a fun exercise” (11 of 13, or 85%) and/or “it was something different to do” (10 of 13, or 76%). It got them to shift their role from student to teacher and get out of the confines of their master’s work. The favorite part of the classroom experience with the children was working with the models in the generic mapping exercise (5 of 12 responses). Working with the location maps and the children’s enthusiasm overall accounted for four additional responses. When asked about their least favorite part of the experience, many (4 of 12) of the respondents indicated talking about planning and planners where others provided open-ended responses pointing out the limits in time and feeling unprepared for the level of exuberance they encountered. Overall, the majority of respondents (89%) felt the children learned “valuable information about planning and planners via the class experience.” When asked what they learned from the experience, responses highlighted the importance of educating children about planning (“It’s important to start educating people about planning at a young age” and “How much of an impact we can make on children’s learning early on about planning their communities”). Students also indicated they had to shift their own perspective: “Kids know more about their neighborhoods than I gave them credit for!” All of the respondents felt “this sort of outreach experience is a valuable part of the Master’s in CRP program.” In terms of the future of the PDIS effort, the majority of students indicated not only that there should be more days involved (9 of 13 or 69%), but also that it should be held at least every quarter rather than once a year (100%). Finally, many students suggested offering independent study credit for volunteers in which they would be more involved than one or two 45-minute classes. Again, results of their input have been institutionalized in the 2-day program and the PDIS coordinator position.
• Goal: expose middle school students to planning and enhance their understanding of how things develop in the world around them. Although it is not a direct impact of this study, the growing recognition and importance of planning outreach to children has been made evident with growing children oriented efforts. Most recently, there has been the publication of a book (see http://www.planetizen.com/kidsbook), which we are exploring as a potential addition to the libraries of our outreach schools.

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