Apply – Page 4 – Exhibit Change

At the end of July, I had the privilege of spending 4 days with the Leaders in Training (LIT) at the Albion Neighbourhood Services Boys and Girls Club Camp. I programmed a week of activities to discuss sustainable cities, environmental impacts and community engagement.

We covered the room in paper and drew sustainable cities. The blank canvas gave the youth an opportunity to create amazing landscapes about recycling, transportation systems, free community centres to get fit at, buildings with green roofs and garbage free zones.

We worked on a Needs-Assets-Ideas map. We produced hundreds of ideas. And from that we pulled 10 ideas to turn into projects for the week.

Did you know that youth between 12 and 16 really like post-it notes? They hoard them by the bundles.

Teamwork was very important to getting the projects done, so we worked on collaboration, competitiveness and action.

The very popular marshmallow challenge inspired by Tom Wujec from Autodesk. This challenge promotes prototyping, idea generating and rapid building.

Working with 20 pieces of spaghetti, 4 marshmallows, masking tape and string.

This project had a slow start, there were lots of questions and doubt, but with a little encouragement and curiosity the teams started assembling tiny towers and through their competitive nature they continued building strong and taller towers. Eventually the winning tower was 15inches tall.

All teams were happy to eat marshmallows as prizes.

Outdoor scavenger hunt and marshmallow challenge both created an ambiance for teamwork and creative ideas flow.

The outdoor scavenger hunt was overwhelmingly successful.

Each team ran across the field collecting answers to clues and figuring out items that are recycled, well designed, playful, squeaky, bouncy to name a few.

We drew “I wish” statements in chalk outside. Each statement was made with the intention of coming true when the rain washed it away. This was a commitment to making action to making our dreams come true.

There was lots of learning and discovery between team mates and between all the LIT’s. They were growing more confident with their team work and collaboration skills. We began work on the ideas that had been chosen from the Needs-Assets-Ideas mapping exercise.

In teams, LIT’s worked on signage to help promote healthy living, recycling, and ultimately saving the earth. Additionally, two healthy living programs were implemented as well. Dancing and Basketball skills. We also spent a lot of time playing with clay and making recycled jewelery.

After all the LIT’s hard work, we talked about making commitments to making change in our communities. Respect goes a long way to keeping a community connected and maintained. Each person can make change in their community by simply making the decision to do so.

I had a great 4 days with the Albion Neighbourhood Services Boys and Girls Club LIT’s!!!!!

Thank you so much, I learned something from each and every one of you.

This past weekend Exhibit Change hosted the Parkdale Garden Design Charrette in partnership with the Parkdale Village Business Improvement Area and Parkdale Liberty Economic Development Corporation. Both organizations are dedicated to the beautification and development of the Parkdale neighbourhood. I planned an activity filled afternoon of design-driven community engagement for the community members of Parkdale. The event hosted a diverse group of community members – youth, BIA board members and staff, community garden workers, residents, and a politician.

The icebreaker activity began the discussion of “What is Design Thinking and Playful Curiosity?” Participants learned that they already know about design thinking and playful curiosity. Design thinking is a process that is engrained in each of us; we all have our individual methods. Playful curiosity is the opportunity to remember that there are unlimited potentials and that true discovery happens when we don’t put any boundaries on our imagination. The participants demonstrated design thinking and playful curiosity by eating Oreo cookies and sharing their processes with each other. It was entertaining to watch all the different cookie eating techniques, one bite stuffers, multi-bite nibblers or split & lickers.

I asked the group to think about “What is a garden?” and to create a collage of images and words to show the collective expression of feelings and all the potential a garden has. I was especially impressed with the youth’s mango and banana trees that they wanted in the gardens. It was inspiring to see all the great ideas and the fun continued. Then we moved to 3D garden creations. The youth kept their fruit theme up with very realistic replica playdoh banana, strawberry and tomato. The others talked about big sunflowers, keeping the existing trees and putting benches back into Parkdale among other great ideas.

Finally, we did an Action Mind Map which allowed everyone to talk about what the garden needs to survive and thrive. It was very touching that everyone wanted to contribute their time and do what they can for the future of the gardens.

The charrette was a public design workshop, which was held on May 15th, 2010 at the Masaryk Cowan community center at 1pm to 4pm, 13 people attended. The 13 participants were a diverse section of the community and represented many generations, ethnicities, genders, professions, commitment to the community and multi-disciplinary perspectives.

Finally, the participants all gathered for a group discussion “What does a garden need to thrive?” Each participant had a stack of post-it notes and they started putting their suggestions up on the way, creating a mind map of action items that needed to happen for the gardens to make it. This collective effort showed that the gardens need a healthy dose of time, energy, resources – both financial and plant materials, people, love, sunshine, volunteers, ideas, spread the word, respect, it was certainly a great start to the conversation. Then each participant made a commitment in “How do you Exhibit Change?” by taking at least one action item off the board. This is the start to the community input.

Overall, I was certainly pleased with the imagination, design thinking and playful curiosity and the hot pink pipe cleaners were an added bonus.