Students from the University of New Mexico School of Architecture and Planning are working in classrooms around Albuquerque and Rio Rancho to bring design techniques to K-12 students.
“Children have the capacity to contribute to the design of their own learning environments,” said Anne Taylor, director of the Institute for Environmental Education, a center in the School of Architecture and Planning.
The institute, a leading developer and provider of an innovative and comprehensive model of education and related services, trains teachers in design education throughout Albuquerque and New Mexico as well as nationally and internationally. It also offers the opportunity for architecture students to participate in service-learning by teaching architecture and design to children in the public and private schools.
One project this semester is being headed by Matt Pacheco, an alumnus of the UNM program. Working with students from the Robert F. Kennedy charter school, Pacheco and his students cleaned up a building inhabited by pigeons.
“They washed the building inside and out and cleaned up the back parking lot. They designed the interior so that it could be used as a school,” Taylor said.
Pacheco ordered 5,000 adobes and the students built the walls for open classrooms, revitalized the fountain and generally improved the environment.
“A Department of Labor inspector was concerned about students building. He had to be convinced that this was a curriculum, not just a building project,” Taylor said. She said that the students were learning math, science and how to design a learning environment by laying adobes.
Currently three UNM architecture students are working with small groups of RFK students to develop a landscape design for the back parking lot.
Lowell Elementary School is the site of another project. Alfred Becente, a Navajo from Sanders, Ariz., who worked construction before deciding to become an architect, is teaching architecture and design to predominately Navajo students in Virginia Yazzie’s class. He is also translating architectural terms into Navajo.
“Learning to respect and appreciate other cultures is an important component of the program,” Taylor said.
“We want children involved with designing their own school environments and have them move into city planning. They have good, practical ideas for the future of the community. We’d like to see children designing the barren landscapes around city schools so the spDavid Brookshire become productive learning landscapes for eco-literacy and for environmental stewardship,” Taylor said.
Other sites involved in the program this year include Rio Rancho High School, Sunset Mesa, S.Y. Jackson, Monte Vista, Zuni, Hubert Humphrey, Bellehaven and Martin Luther King elementary schools and Martineztown Community Center.
For more information, contact Anne Taylor at 277-1199.
Contact: Carolyn Gonzales, (505) 277-5920
Posted by scarr at November 12, 2004 09:54 AM