Architecture for kids podcast with Corrin Wendell Founder & Executive Director YEP! Youth Engagement Planning

Youth have the power to inspire and create cities, they are our future difference makers!

Transcript

UNKNOWN: 0:00

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SPEAKER_00: 0:09

Hello and welcome to another episode of Architecture for Kids podcast. I'm your host, António Cablão. I'm a trained architect, an architectural educator and founding director of award-winning Architecture for Kids CIC. In this podcast, I'm going to talk to practitioners and creatives that share the same passion as I do, to inspire and to engage children and young people to shape their built environment and the creative industries. The podcast is brought to you in collaboration with the Built Environment Trust, the Thornton Education Trust, and the Wells School of Architecture, Cardiff University. My guest today is Corinne Wendell. Corinne is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners and founding executive director of youth engagement planning, ACAS-IEP, City of Little Canada's community development director and past chair of American Psychology Association Women and Planning Division. Corrine's passion for nurturing current and future planners and their commitment to enhancing the planning profession were cultivated over a 20-year career spanning diverse planning disciplines, including architectural and urban design, regional and land use planning, redevelopment, comprehensive planning, zoning administration and code writing, and community and youth engagement. Her passion and commitment are strongly exemplified through her service to the planning profession, including mentorship of Thank you very much. and the built environment. She also develops custom planning curriculum, toolkit resources, webinars, workshops, and guides us to planners. Corinne, thank you for talking to me today, and I'm looking forward to our conversation.

SPEAKER_01: 2:26

Thank you so much for the invitation to talk today.

SPEAKER_00: 2:29

Corinne, what was your favorite subjects at school, and what subjects did you excel if they were different?

SPEAKER_01: 2:35

When I was growing up, I really had a passion for actually math and science, and also art. I always used to draw building plans as a kid. I would always get those magazines that showed the building plan and then what the house could look like. And I used to always copy them and draw them. And I thought architecture and buildings were always so beautiful. And that was sort of where my sketching passion came from. But also I was really somewhat good at math, always tried to excel in that area, which led to liking physics and the science where math was included. And then also had to do with architectures, really had a passion for that early on in my youth.

SPEAKER_00: 3:12

And now that you did develop into your career?

SPEAKER_01: 3:14

Yes, that really started the planting of the seed to what I do today, even though I didn't know what planning was all the way until I finished my architecture degrees. I didn't even know urban planning was a profession, but in high school, I finished up and graduated, went to college at The Ohio State University for architecture and really had a passion for how buildings came together, how they fit within a community. I always thought it was more than just the building. It was about how people experienced it in the place where the building was set. I finished my architecture degree and actually had a job working for an architecture firm when I saw a conference about urban planning back at my school, Ohio State. I attended there and that weekend completely changed the trajectory of my entire career. I thought I'd be a certified registered architect and that I would do architecture my whole life. But really that passion for not only the building, but the entire community started to grow from there. And I applied right away for grad school and I ended up receiving my master of city and regional planning from Ohio State. And I was able to become an urban designer for the city of Columbus in Ohio. It's really merging those passions for architecture and planning to become an urban designer. It really was a dream job for me. And over the past 20 years, urban design really has been a part of who I am as a planner. So I have that strong architectural background. I can read site plans, construction documents, all of that fun stuff. But I also can plan for the future. It's really been amazing to have that foundation in architecture. to be able to be a better planner. on a nonprofit called YEP, Youth Engagement Planning. And that has really become something that is hand in hand with what I do as well in my planning work.

SPEAKER_00: 5:20

And how did the Youth Engagement Planning, YEP, start?

SPEAKER_01: 5:23

Youth Engagement Planning. So YEP started back in 2006 when I was at Ohio State. I was in my last year of grad school and the professor had asked my colleague, Monica, who is now the VP of YEP on the board. She and I have been longtime friends ever since. Asked us to do an independent study project on providing some curriculums two kiddos in school about planning. They wanted the student association be able to go into the community and teach about planning, and they had never done it before. And I was really excited about this opportunity. And we developed this manual, Planners Day in School manual, that we were able to deploy in the K-12 schools in Columbus. And that really became a torch that really said to me, this doesn't exist anywhere. When we were trying to research other manuals that had been done for K-12 schools, we didn't find anything. We really had to create a from scratch and start from the beginning of what does that mean to teach kids about planning? Where's that awareness? How can we incorporate it into what they're already learning in school? And then how can we get planners and students involved in going into the schools and teaching about planning? And even as a young planner, I noticed that a lot of people didn't include youth into the planning process. It was really missing and how to do that. The teaching of that wasn't there as well. YEP became a nonprofit organization that teaches kids K through 12 about urban planning and civic engagement and how to create change in their community. And then we also teach and train planners how to incorporate youth into the planning process, which is really important to have kids have their voices heard in the changes that they will see in the community and the plans that we create that are 10, 20, 30 years into the future. They will be experiencing those plans. So imperative for them to be a part of those conversations. And our organization is completely volunteer-led. We have a 10-member executive board that runs the organization, and we make it our mission to really teach kids about what planning is, that they may be planners one day for career, but also for awareness. What is happening in your community? How can you be a part of it? Reducing barriers, increasing access, really making sure that kids feel a part of their community and that they have a say. We really want it to be our mission to be that voice and to advocate for kids and to advocate for communities to incorporate youth. YEP has been nearly 20 years now and we've really grown in a lot of ways. We provide tools and resources is for free on our website for anybody to use. We have so many downloads every single day of our material for planners to use, for teachers to use. And then we also have large events that we conduct nationwide, which has been really fun and really exciting for not only us as planners, but also for our profession to grow the profession.

SPEAKER_00: 8:01

And do you want to talk a bit about those tools? What are they and what do they consist of?

SPEAKER_01: 8:05

Yes, the Planners Day in School manual that we originally developed at Ohio State became Planning Day in School. We have various activities that you can do as part of our program and we have the powerpoint already ready for you that you can modify we have the step-by-step we have a guide to youth engagement if you are afraid of teaching kids about planning we have a guide for that can walk you through as if we are having a conversation with you this is stuff you do two months out one month out how to contact teachers we provide those step-by-step instruction we have the planners day in school curriculums going into the school teaching kids about planning and also set up with what is planning. What are some planning icons? What are landmarks? What are things in your community? What do you notice? What are some challenges in your community? What are some opportunities? And it leads you through that course specifically as a 45 minute course. And you can incorporate anything that is special to you as well. If you're a planner in that community, and you're working on a transportation plan, or you know that a new park is going in, you can add those elements right into our curriculum to make it specialized and really cater to what you want to teach in the classroom. We also have our Girls Who Plan program. That is specifically for teaching groups of girls. We have partnered with the Girl Scouts. We've partnered with Girls Inc., which is an international organization to go into after school programs to help inspire the next generation of planners. We want to achieve gender parity in our profession and include more women. We specifically have that program for girls to learn. We'll be developing a Girl Scout patch, the first ever city planning patch in cooperation with the Girl Scouts of America. And we'll have a huge event in the spring focused on that. And we also have our adventures in planning, not just the one course going into the school, but we had a lot of teachers say, can you come back? Can you do more of a deep dive? Is there a way that we can have you come every month or every week? We developed a series of courses and that goes over nine weeks or nine months, however you want to make the timing for that. And it goes through all of the different types of planning. We really do a deep dive on economic development, transportation, park planning, natural resources, comprehensive planning, and regular zoning, planning and zoning and land planning. And we take the kids sort of an explanation of what that is instead of just that overview that we do in the planning day in school. And also have courses where we have planners really take their own passion into the classroom and we help them customize curriculums. We have opportunities for them to, we have a youth action plan on our website that you can download and you can kind of work through the idea of who am I going to work with? What are their ages? We give ideas, courses and types of topics that you can talk about. Also, what kind of activities go with those topics. And you can kind of chart out your own plan for that. And that is something that we do a lot at national planning conferences and other statewide conferences where we're leading groups of planners into how do I do my own action plan? How do I do something that's unique to my community? And we also provide that for free on our website. And we're always adding different types of curriculum, which could be adapted for any type of interaction with the students.

SPEAKER_00: 11:05

These programs and all these tools that you have, are they specific to the state where you are or they can be used all over the U.S.?

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SPEAKER_00: 11:12

And the other question, do you work together with the curriculum as a learning and a teaching exercise?

SPEAKER_01: 11:17

Yes, what we do is for the development of the curriculum was developed with teachers. And we wanted to make sure that our curriculum aligned with what we call in the U.S. kind of the Common Core program. We make sure that it aligns with what the kids are teaching and that it has the goals and objectives of what the teachers would like to see in the classroom. And our curriculum was developed in mind with that, work closely with teachers. And we also were able to work with planners to be able to train them into being able to learn about this curriculum ahead of time and be able to go into the classroom and deploy the classroom experience. And we do that a lot at conferences as well. We'll have a workshop where the first hour or two is the learning and the workshop with the planners and teaching them, doing the training and going through all of the best practices. That's also available on our website. We have a best practices to youth engagement and really giving them the overview of why incorporate youth, how can we do this better? What's the purpose of it? What's the value of it? And we go through that for the first part of the workshop. And we turn around and have them put those skills into practice. And we have a group of kids that we interact with. And in a lot of circumstances, we've had 10 to 12 different rotating activities for kids to experience. And then we have the planners facilitating those activities and those rotation. And that has a lot to do with our curriculum and touching on all the different types of planning. Also, in the past, we've had students carry around what we call a passport and every time they complete one of the activities they get a little sticker and they're able to complete the entire circle of different activities and be able to we have always we have snacks and prizes and lots of things for them to take home as well if you work with kids you know to bring snacks because that's important for the whole experience

SPEAKER_00: 12:59

and what are some of those activities consist of

SPEAKER_01: 13:02

yes we have a lot of different activities that really resonate with kids we're always very hands-on always either at tables or on the floor we really want to to be an all immersive experience. We really want to get away from the death. We don't want kids to sit still for a certain amount of time. We want them to be active and enjoying themselves and really bringing their full selves and making it a very inclusive experience. And some of those activities, my favorite are we do Imagine Your City. We have a big roll of paper that goes out across the entire floor. And then all of the kids are able to draw what their future city might look like. And after they're done drawing their city, they have to ask their neighbor how they're going to connect with whether that's a bike path or a bridge or a waterway or a roller coaster, however they decide to connect with their neighbor because we really want to instill in kids that we don't really plan alone. What we do is not just for us, it's for everybody. And we really need to make sure that we connect with our other cities. All cities are connected by one way or another. That's a really fun one. And then we also have our wind farmer activities. The wind farmer is teaching about sustainability, natural resources. We talk about wind turbines and how they produce energy and how they're environmentally friendly. And then we have the kid create ones. We have them build their own wind turbine. We test them out with hands and make sure that they're operable. And we line them up and we create a wind farm. And we really try and deal with them the background and education of why renewable energies are important. So we talk about solar, we talk about geothermal, we talk about all the different types of natural resources and sustainability and different types of energy that is available in the world. But then also, how do we connect together with these systems? How is wind Wind farming, important. How does it help our environment? And then they're able to learn about it and hear about it and actually do the hands-on activity and see how the impact fits. The one wind turbine's great, but if you have a whole farm, you have a bigger impact working together and bringing those elements together. We also have an activity about transportation. It's about storytelling. It's called We Are All Connected. And we have the students imagine that there's someone in their community and we give them a site plan of a neighborhood and it has different places on it, like the grocery store, the library, the school, their house, and they have to create a story about where they went and how they got there. And they go through sort of different imaginative type of experiences, or they can imagine someone that they know already, or maybe someone that they've seen. So if they start at their house, and they're taking the bus to the school, and then from there, they're walking to the park. And then from there, they get on the train and go to libraries, they really are experiencing what it's like to travel in a community, what it's like to take different modes of transportation, teach them about the word mode and what that means, planning, we have a lot of jargon or a lot of acronyms or words that don't make sense to people who aren't planners. We try to really minimize the confusion and teach them about that vocabulary. And also imagine if you were someone else. Imagine if you were in someone else's shoes and this is how you got around in your day. And they write out some questions at the end about their experience. What were some exciting parts of their day? What are some challenges that they had? What could be in the community that would help them or make it better? So we really try and have those conversations. And this really is applicable. A lot of these courses that we have are K through 12. So we really have it more interactive and hands on for the littler kids, the middle kids, we get a little bit more technical. And then with the older kids, we're really doing something that is a little more in line with what you would need to know before you went to college before you made that step into planning and prepping them almost as in a course to show them all the things that they would get to learn about or research about if they went to college trying to connect that pipeline of the career for kids as young people say, how do you teach It's like, well, that is possible. And it's special. And you start with the world around them. And then you can get all the way up into their older years. They're 18 in the US before we go to college. So in that first step and making the awareness that it's possible, that it's a career choice. And here's the steps to get there. And all of the activities are a little more either simplified or they're more technical, depending on the group of kids that were working.

SPEAKER_00: 17:03

Amazing body of work that you have developed in the last 20 years. How easy was it to implement? Yeah. And all these programs that you are doing. developing and exploring. There must be lots of challenges.

SPEAKER_01: 17:14

In the development of the organization, what we provide and then who we interact with really has grown over time. And we've really found this wonderful momentum as we've been doing this as an organization, because we're volunteer led, because we rely on people to supplement sort of what we do. All of the donations and things that we receive go right back into the organization. And that has helped us excel over time in the work that we do. I don't know if there's been challenges, but I feel like we We have a really amazing will. We have this needs to be in the world and we are so excited about it and we're inspired by it. And we just want to show others that it's possible and that you get more out of it than you put into it every single time. When we work with kids, I am so much more inspired. I'm so much more excited about what I do as a planner. Kids are amazing. As you know, working with kids, they're so excited and they have their own inspiration, their own optimism. They see things that we don't see. They have perspectives that we don't have. They contribute in ways that we could never contribute. And that has been the catalyst to having this organization be successful as it is. It's because we provide those opportunities. We reduce the barrier that people think they have in interacting with kids. This is how you talk to a teacher. This is how you talk to a principal. This is how you coordinate an event with the Boys and Girls Club or Girls Inc. or the Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts. This is how it's possible. And we make it very easy for people to have these great experiences. And I I think that has been the amazing part of our organization and why people have been really favorable to what we do. The types of tools and resources and our workshops that we provide have been really well received, had so many downloads of our elements. We've been able to partner with universities for their capstone projects, for their grad students to participate in providing more tools and resources and doing research. We want to be someone who is researched. We want someone to try to find youth engagement and they're going to find us. And it happened on so many occasions. We want to be the helping hand. If you think that you want to have some sort of event or interact with kids or incorporate kids into your planning process, we are on calls all the time providing that kind of consulting for free with folks. What can you do? How can you make it better? What are your constraints? What are your opportunities? And working through that with people is really important because we just want to open that door and say, this is something that's so valuable. And once you do it, you learn how amazing it is. And then you want to do it all the time. We want this to become common for people to do. We want it to be part of their everyday. And And we also feel like we're filling gaps. So we always say if we don't see something out there, we're just going to make it because no one else is going to do it if we don't do it or we don't ask others to help us in that endeavor. We are creating a children's book called Ava Tanner, The City Planner, where a young girl of color is going to solve problems in the community because we didn't see representation in the planning field. We didn't see kids or books geared towards kids of that middle age group having something that they could look at and read about and be inspired by at that age. We're just going to go ahead and create this and put it out in of the world. And we've been really excited to be able to have the platform that we have. I have an amazing group of executive board members who are outstanding planners in their daily work and do this because they have a passion for it and have the volunteers of the planners had thousands of planners in our workshops and downloading our resources and going into the school, which has been amazing. And we've had so many cities and universities use our resources to help with their planning process to incorporate youth into what they're doing for comprehensive plans and corridors plans, neighborhood plans. So we are just always open and excited to working with any organization to incorporate youth. And I feel like planning is a similar thing to youth where it really relates to everything. The planning profession, you can come from any background and become a planner, which is the amazing part about being a planner. And then planning relates to every part of the community and youth experience every part of that community. So we want to make sure that 22% of the population, which are youth, are incorporated into what we do as planners. And I think it resonates well with so many people. And I think that's why we've had the momentum and the success that we've had as an organization. And there's still more to do. Every time I go to a conference, I ask folks, when did you learn about planning? Was it in high school or before? And maybe two people raise their hand until the entire room raises their hand and said, oh, I learned about planning in my K through 12 years. We have work to do. Usually after my first degree, which was me, after I already got an architecture degree, then I learned about planning. And we really think that there's an opportunity and a gap there that we want to fulfill. And we really want to be successful at it. We are going to continue to work tirelessly until we cover all of those areas and have this awareness and really give this as a resource for people that hadn't existed before.

SPEAKER_00: 21:49

In your view, what is the implication on the built environment as well as on the young people by becoming aware of urban planning earlier on?

SPEAKER_01: 21:56

Usually when we talk about this, we are saying this is a topic or an area that's not just relevant, but it really is imperative for the sustainable development of our urban landscape. And that's youth engagement and urban planning. And we really want to be a source of inspiration and empowerment in that, sharing in this movement, because this can shape not only the communities, but the future of our young generations. And we feel that there is a connection between how our cities can grow in positive ways and youth being connected to that. I always have a little slide up there that says, can youth really make a difference in planet? Because people sometimes aren't believers. And I usually show a slide where you have youth such as Malala, where you have Greta Thunberg, and you You have kids who are doing things in amazing ways. There's a boy named Orion and he was a kids time person of the year for his sort of had a platform about kindness. And so you have these youth that are really driving the discussion on education, on the environment, on being kind. And there's a 14 year old who developed a lotion for skin cancer and it is eradicating skin cancer and he's 14. It just amazes me the ability that youth have to think in ways that we'd do not think. And I feel very deeply that it's imperative that we let them in on the conversation and we have them be a part of these discussions because we don't know what we don't know. Sometimes we don't know the ideas that they have and the passion that they have. And our urban landscapes are used to be designed by older and whiter types of communities. And that does not fit all people. And usually male, that does not fit our genders. That does not fit our families. It doesn't fit our young people. And there's a huge opportunity for the wind to be open for youth in order to have a different type of landscape, to have a different type of vocabulary that we use. And it's a greater mission that we have than just teaching youth about planning. It really spans being more inclusive and having more access and being diverse and showing that in a way that showing kids that we want to be equitable, that we want to have a world that works for everyone. And that's why we need to include everyone in that conversation. And that our sounding board and our foundation is that we have those true belief that all people are important and all people should have a voice from all backgrounds. And that has really resonated in the work that we do and the programming that we roll out. And we are culturally sensitive. We ensure that we have programming that shows diversity, equity, inclusion. And we work with kiddos that are experiencing homelessness or that are experiencing autism or neurodivergent and reaching into areas of our community that really are underserved and neglected at times. And we want to be their voice and specifically reach out to kids who are experiencing socio-economical challenges or come from areas that have experienced various natural disasters. There's a lot of trauma. We have trauma-informed planning in our best practices. There's really a human aspect to it. The humanity of it is really important to us. And we show that through our programming and through our connections that we make with children and with planners. And that I think is the real draw because we really have this overarching desire to have a more inclusive world. And that's going to start with our youth and it's going to continue being with our youth no matter and as they grow in those generations they will take that with them they'll be more empathetic it will be more inclusive they will be including of all folks and that is something that we really want to just embody as an organization and show people how that can be done in a way that's really helpful to folks and then provides that hope the hope and that excitement of what can happen in this world what can our spaces look like and provide that optimism that sometimes I think as adults we lose and that doesn't help that that doesn't help in our planning if we don't see all that it can be and see all the solutions.

SPEAKER_00: 25:45

The programs that you have anywhere in the world could use them as a starting point to talk about planning and then obviously cultural and site-specific. If anyone is listening to us, let's say in Sydney or in Lisbon, could they reach out to you and could they use your program with children and young people in their communities?

SPEAKER_01: 26:03

Thank you, Antonio. So this is something that's entirely universal. This is something that has been the foundations of planning are accessible and are able to be interpreted by anyone in any part of the world. We've had a lot of people reach out to us from Australia, from Kenya, from different parts of the world. We have a flyer called Urban Planning Awareness and it said, this is what a planner does. Do you want to be an architect? Do you want to be a mayor? How about an urban planner? And we show all the different things that planners can do in a day. And that has resonated so well with people across the world saying, this is what planning is and I'm proud of it. And our curriculum really can be adapted to any situation, any type of school group, age group. We really go by age. Wherever you are in the world, you have kids that maybe are that age. And other than translating it into different languages, that will be sort of our next step. But we are able to talk with anybody from any different part of the world about planning and what that means to them. I've been a part of different conversations with international planners. And every part of the different continents, the different countries, the different areas, planning is viewed in a different way. The value of planning is viewed in a different way. How planners feel about what they do is viewed differently. And this is really something that can bring all of that together and to really be that universal piece that connects everything because it is very foundational to what we do as planners and our curriculum and best practices can be applied to anyone doing any type of planning, which is great, not just specific to one type of planning. And we really want to make sure that all urban planners feel that they can take this and teach it in the schools, but then also take our messages about incorporating youth into their planning process because planning processes are pretty similar, I I think in our education, we learn about planning in a pretty similar way, and that is really adaptable as well. Anybody from anywhere can go to our website and download our material and be able to be successful with them.

SPEAKER_00: 27:51

School teachers, if they are interested in exploring planning with their students, they can directly use your program. They don't need you or someone from your team to be there. And I think that is one of the exciting things about what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01: 28:02

A friend of mine is a fourth grade teacher, and we ran all of the curriculum by her and other teachers to ensure that it is something that they could just download and print off in their classroom because we give them the step-by-steps instruction. This is what it is. This is why you're doing it. This is how many materials you need, you know, how long it will take. And here are the steps. Here's your setup. This is what you're going to be learning and taking the kids through the various activities. And it really is so easy for people to just utilize as a teacher. And if they want, they can call up their local planner and come in and maybe do a presentation and partner with them, but it is not necessary. We wanted to make sure that we are adding to the curriculum. We call it a part of the STEM or the STEAM learning. We want to make sure that teachers feel comfortable that this is just another part of education that isn't normally taught in school. And hopefully someday we'll infiltrate a little more into including planning as part of courses that are taught in schools and that curriculum. But we made sure that it aligns with their curriculum, that they don't have to do any other work other than leading the exercises.

SPEAKER_00: 29:03

Is there a question I should have asked you that I haven't asked you? And what is that question?

SPEAKER_01: 29:06

We always do a call to action. So this is great. In any of the interactions that we have with planners with various groups and at conferences and workshops and all of those fun stuff we always have this last element where we really want to make sure that planners can be challenged I'll put a challenge out there to planners of the world the challenge is to incorporate youth in your next planning process or visit a school and share your passion for planning with young people we always say that you are uniquely qualified to share your passion for planning remove barriers increase access inspire the next generation and then they are you uniquely qualified to have a voice and be included and provide their perspective and to be you in 20 or 30 years. And we want everyone to join in this mission. And we are open and available to have lots of conversations about how this can happen across the world and in various areas. We always want to make sure that planners have this need to want to incorporate youth into what they do and how can we be a help to that. So we'll put out that call to action to all the planners out there and don't hesitate to reach out to us should you have a question or need us to help customize curriculum or help you with your next event. Thank you, Antonio. I really appreciate the invitation and thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00: 30:17

Thank you very much to my guests today, to all the listeners. And please subscribe to Architecture for Kids podcast and leave your rating and the review. Recommend us to your friends and family. And to find out more about it, visit our websites, antoniocoplant-portfolio.co.uk, buildingcenter.co.uk, And please join me again next week for another episode of Architecture for Kids podcast, brought to you in collaboration with the Built Environment Trust, the Thornton Education Trust and the Welsh School of Architecture. Cardiff University.