Lecture: "From Use to Use at All Scales"
Thursday, October 28, 5:00 p.m.
Environmental Design Building Rm 134
CU Boulder – Event poster
Karen A. Franck is a professor in the College of Architecture and Design and the College of Science and Liberal Arts at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, where she also serves as Director of the Joint PhD Program in Urban Systems. Her PhD is in environmental psychology from the City University of New York. Karen has written about a wide range of topics: designing for human needs in Architecture from the Inside Out; possibility and diversity in urban life in Loose Space, relationships between food, architecture and the city in issues of the magazine AD; types in architecture and design in Ordering Space; and alternative housing in New Households, New Housing. Her most recent work, written with Teresa Howard, is Design through Dialogue: A Guide for Clients and Architects.
Lecture: "Nature, Human Development and the Built Environment"
Thursday, November 18, 5:00 p.m.
Environmental Design Building Rm 134
CU Boulder – Event poster
Stephen Kellert is the Tweedy Ordway Professor Emeritus of Social Ecology and Senior Research Scholar at the Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. He is also a member of the Board of Directors and Chief Environmental Officer of Bio-Logical Capital, a firm that invests in and implements sustainable land uses on large landscapes. His work focuses on understanding the connection between nature and humanity with a particular interest in environmental conservation and sustainable design. His many books include Biophilic Design and Building for Life. |
Film Screening: "Angels in the Dust"
Thursday, February 5, 7:00 PM
Muenzinger Auditorium, CU Boulder Campus
Co-Sponsored by CYE and Mother's Acting Up
HIV is still rampant in many parts of Africa. Nearly 20 years ago, Marion and Con Cloete decided to leave their comfortable Johannesburg suburb and started an orphanage called Boikarabelo.
South Africa, 2007, English, Color, 95 min, unrated, 35mm.
For more information visit the International Film Series website.
Film Screening: "Children of Heaven"
Thursday, February 26, 7:00 PM
Muenzinger Auditorium, CU Boulder Campus
Sponsored by CYE
Iran's Majid Majidi wrote and directed this tale of a brother an sister in Tehran who accidentally lose her only shoes when they take them to the cobbler.
Iran, 1997, Farsi, Color, 89 min, unrated, 35mm
For more information visit the International Film Series website.
Film Screening: "Times and Winds"
Thursday, March 5, 7:00 PM
Muenzinger Auditorium, CU Boulder Campus
Sponsored by CYE
Reha Erdem's narrative film addresses the pains that afflict everyone who must pass from one phase of life into another, wheather young or old.
Turkey, 2006, Turkish, Color, 111 min, unrated, 35mm
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International Film Series: "BlindSight"
November 13, 2008
Co-Sponsored by CYE
Documents Blind Tibetan Teens' Everest Peak Bid
A blind seven-summit mountain climber, Erik Weihenmayer, leads six Tibetan teenagers, who are also blind, in an attempt to climb Mount Everest's Lhakpa-Ri Peak in this documentary by Lucy Walker.; Shown in Cooperation with the AHG conference (Disability Services-CU).
UK, 2006, Tibetan/German/English, Color, 104 min, PG, 35mm
Harry Heft
Department of Psychology
Denison University
November 13, 2008
The Participatory Character of Environments
[Download Flyer]
International Film Series: "Black Orpheus"
October 30, 2008
Co-Sponsored by CYE
Greek Tragedy Set in Brazil to Bossa-Nova Beats
Bossa-Nova music became known worldwide upon French director Marcel Camus recasting of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice as a Brazilian drama, which took the top prise at Cannes in 1959.; Luiz Bonfa and Antonio Carlos Jobim's seductive music propels the story of an engaged Rio streetcar driver (Breno Mello) who falls in love with a visiting country girl (Marpessa Dan) during the madness of Carnaval.
Brazil/France/Italy, 1959, Portuguese, Color, 107 min, PG, 35mm
David Hawkins and Karen Payne
October 28, 2008
Wild Zones!; Letting Kids Play Off-Leash
Wild Zones are a new land-use concept: places where adults, children and adolescents can playfully co-create a new form of public space that enlivens people's connection with each other and with nature. Wild Zones differ from parks and nature reserves because they offer opportunities to alter the environment rather than leaving it untouched - places to build dens and treehouses, make new pathways, create sculptures, mess around with water and mud, and other forms of free play. ;David Hawkins and Karen Payne, Co-founders of Wild Zones, will talk about how Wild Zones offer a holistic approach to a wide range of issues including environmental stewardship, violence prevention, educational achievement, mental health, youth civic engagement, nature deficit disorder, attention-deficit disorder, obesity and other health concerns. ;Their presentation illustrates the first Wild Zones in the US and other inspiring photographs from around the world.
(For ;more information on Wild Zones, see ;www.wild-zone.net.)
International Film Series: "The Red Balloon" & "White Mane"
October 2, 2008
Co-Sponsored by CYE
A friendly balloon leads a boy into the streets of Paris in French director Albert Lamorisse's short fantasy, which won the Palm d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1957.;
France, 1956, French, Color, 34 min, Unrated, 35mm
In Lamorisse's 1953 short, WHITE MANE, filmed in southern France, a boy helps a wild horse escape the ranchers who want to break him.
France, 1953, French, Color, 40 min, Unrated, 35mm
International Film Series: "Spirited Away"
September 25, 2008
Co-Sponsored by CYE
Miyazaki's Fantastic Anime Masterpiece
In 2002, Disney released the U.S. version of Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki's story of a girl's plunge into a world of eccentric spirits and difficult challenges.; SPIRITED AWAY cemented Miyazaki's reputation as a master of this art form.
Japan, 2001, Japanese Color, 125 min, PG, 35mm |
Patsy Eubank Owens
Department of Landscape Architecture
University of California at Davis
April 18, 2008
Youth Place in Community: Safe, Welcoming and Supportive Environments
In recent years, community initiatives have emerged with the purpose of exploring and addressing how to make our communities better places for youth to grow up. One component of this effort is understanding communities from the youth point of view. Studies in two California cities, Sacramento and Pasadena, help us to understand youth perceptions of place through their photographs and writings. This presentation focuses on the community places that the study participants thought were “for youth.” Their images and words describe places that are safe, welcoming and supportive. Understanding why places are important to youth is an essential step in creating better environments for youth.;
Michael Duffin
Program Evaluation and Educational Research, Inc.
Richmond, VT
April 3, 2008
Using the Local Community as Classroom and Curriculum
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Co-sponsored by the CU Environmental Center, CU Environmental Studies Program, and the CU Boulder Outreach Committee and
in collaboration with Casey Middle School of the Boulder Valley School District, the Colorado Alliance for Environmental Education, and the CU School of Education.
Susan Strife
Environmental Studies Program
University of Colorado
February 1, 2008
The Concrete Jungle: Environmental Perceptions among Denver Urban Youth
This project seeks to examine the environmental perceptions and nature experiences of urban 5th grade youth across three different environmental and school contexts in Denver, Colorado.; Through 45 child-drawn maps, semi-structured interviews and child-led neighborhood tours, this hermeneutic phenomenological research aims to understand how urban youth experience nature as well as how they emotionally and behaviorally respond to environmental issues they deem as important.Such research is practically important as a starting point for voicing and engaging youth perspectives in the local planning process, as well as furthering scholarly knowledge on the child-environment relationship.
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Matthew Kaplan, Intergenerational Programs and Aging
Pennsylvania State University
November 8, 2007
Intergenerational Engagement: Programs, Practices, and Places
Intergenerational specialists seek to develop intergenerational programs that enrich the lives of individuals, strengthen communities, and address vital social issues.; Historically, little attention has been paid to the physical environment in terms of how it influences intergenerational communication dynamics and mediates program impact on participants, participating organizations, and surrounding communities.; At the same time, design professionals often develop environments that do not adequately accommodate people across the age continuum nor afford opportunities for intergenerational interaction.
Several ideas will be presented about how to plan and construct physical environments that are responsive to intergenerational engagement goals. Key themes include the following: providing "welcoming messages" and interaction cues for people of all ages; embracing design as a means for empowering people to have control over how much and in what ways they engage others; providing opportunities for escape as well as interaction; incorporating flexibility into the built environment; and approaching environmental design in the context of programmatic,organizational, and policy imperatives.
Co-sponsored by the Institute for Intentional Sustainable Communities
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Andrea Faber Taylor, Landscape and Human Health Laboratory
University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign
March 1, 2007
[Download Flyer]
Healthy Functioning by Design: Evidence of the Benefits of Nearby Nature for Children and Adults
Can the physical environment really foster healthy human functioning? Does it matter if there are trees and grass visible and accessible in our work, school, and home environments? Researchers at the Landscape and Human Health Laboratory have been focusing on the relationship between healthy functioning and greenspace in Chicago public housing and other settings. The labs research demonstrates the impact of green spaces on psychological and social well-being in children and adults, including reductions in aggression and violence, crime, and ADHD symptoms, and greater cognitive functioning, play behaviors, strength of community, and supervision of children outdoors. In this presentation, Dr. Faber Taylor will present these research findings and their implications for design.
This presentation will focus on involving children, youth and communities in the planning and design of the physical environment during the aftermath of natural disasters. Programmatic, political and policy aspects of participation will be discussed. Specific references will be given from the projects carried out after the earthquakes in Marmara, Turkey; Bam, Iran and the Tsunami in the Southeast Asia.
Jill Litt, Department of Preventive Medicine and Biometrics
Health Sciences Center University of Colorado
May 4, 2007
A Community-based Approach to Understanding Neighborhood Environments and Health: Gardens for Growing Healthy Communities
Gardens for Growing Healthy Communities (GGHC) is a three-year study of over 60 community gardens in Denver to learn about how neighborhoods can be designed to promote health and well-being. GGHC is a collaborative research project of the University of Colorado's School of Medicine and College of Architecture and Planning, Denver Urban Gardens, Front Range Earth Force, and residents and other stakeholders in Denver. In this presentation, Dr. Litt, an assistant professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine and Biostatistics at the School of Medicine, will provide an overview of the project and its interdisciplinary approach to understand the health and social benefits of community gardens.
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Michael McDevitt
School of Journalism and Mass Communication
University of Colorado - Boulder
September 19, 2006
The Red and Blue of Adolescence: Origins of the Dutiful Voter and the Defiant Activist
An emergent culture of youth activism suggests the need to examine a fundamental question about political learning. Does formal education function primarily to engender compliance or does instruction foster differentiation, and perhaps defiance, in political identity construction? This project draws upon data from a three-year panel study of high school students. Results support a theoretical model in which schools prompt discussion in families and in peer groups. The flows of interpersonal influence in the two spheres share common steps but can be thought of as parallel staircases to divergent orientations, with families promoting compliant voting and peer groups fostering activism.
Selim Iltus
Graduate Center, Environmental Psychology Program
City University of New York
September 29, 2006
Youth Participation in Planning and Design During Disaster Recovery
This presentation will focus on involving children, youth and communities in the planning and design of the physical environment during the aftermath of natural disasters. Programmatic, political and policy aspects of participation will be discussed. Specific references will be given from the projects carried out after the earthquakes in Marmara, Turkey; Bam, Iran and the Tsunami in the Southeast Asia.
Richard Louv, Futurist and Author
October 25, 2006
Biophilic Design and Nature Deficit-Disorder
Co-sponsored by the CU Environmental Center and the Program in Environmental Studies
Tom Miller
National Research Center, Inc.
November 14, 2006
Evaluating Community Based Organizations: Teen Programs and Community Food Security.
Dr. Miller will discuss NRC evaluations of 34 after-school programs across Colorado (for The Colorado Trust) and evaluations of local farm-to-school or farm-to-community programs across the U.S. (for USDA).
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Ben Kirshner
School of Education
University of Colorado - Boulder
February 7, 2006
Assistance strategies in three youth activism organizations:Facilitation, apprenticeship, and joint work.
This presentation examines teaching practices in three urban, multiracial youth groups engaged in social change campaigns.; Although calls for "youth participation" have become more common in recent years, few researchers have studied the strategies that adult educators use to engage and empower novice youth participants.; How do adults lend guidance while still supporting youth autonomy and voice?; Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork in three youth groups, this paper describes distinct strategies employed by adults: facilitation, apprenticeship, and joint work.; Whereas "facilitation" created rich opportunities for collaborative decision-making with limited adult assistance, "apprenticeship" and "joint work" offered different ways for high school students to participate in campaigns with clear policy goals.; Implications for supporting youth participation in policymaking will be discussed.
David Driskell
Department of City and Regional Planning
Cornell University
February 16, 2006
The Promise and Pitfalls of Action Research with Children and Youth
For the past ten years the Growing Up in Cities project has worked in a variety of contexts to develop and implement; research initiatives focused on how young people (typically in the range of 10 to 15 years old) perceive, use and value the urban environment, and how they can be meaningful agents of change in their local communities. In doing so, many sites have explicitly adopted an 'action research' paradigm which places young participants as 'co-researchers' in the inquiry and evaluation process. This research paradigm presents a number of unique challenges as well as opportunities. We will begin with an overview of some of the epistemological foundations of action research, followed by an exploration of practical issues experienced in last summer's Growing Up in NYC project.;
Kathleen Man
Department of Film Studies
University of Colorado - Boulder
March 7, 2006
Sita, a Girl from Jambu
Kathleen Man will present and discuss Sita, the story of a young teenage girl from a remote village in Nepal who dreams of marriage and a family but whose desperate circumstances lead her, like thousands of other Nepalese girls, to the world of child trafficking and sexual slavery. The 50-minute film was shot entirely on location in Nepal in 2004. Man worked with non-actors and filmed in remote villages. "I decided to use a Nepalese girls' performance of their own play called Bichari Sita, which means 'poor Sita' in English, as an anchor in the overall narrative structure to give a unique look at how adolescent Nepalese girls perceive their position in this issue and how they subsequently take action," said Man. "I combined the play with a more conventional narrative element of the film that brings us out of the street drama and into the personal world of targeted girls." The film has been accepted into the Hawaii International Film Festival, and was invited to screen at the South Asian International Film Festival and the Denver International Film Festival. For more information, visit the film's official website.
Deborah Thomas, Darcy Varney, Laura Makar, and Amanda Gierow
Department of Geography
University of Colorado - Denver
April 4, 2006
Participatory Youth Research on Environmental Impacts in Northwest Denver: Challenges, Lessons Learned, and Successes;
Greg Duncan
Northwestern University
April 13, 2006
New Hope: A policy success for working poor families and their children
New Hope was designed to help working poor families by offering an income supplement that lifted them above the poverty line, subsidized health care and child care, and offered them a job when they couldn’t find one. New Hope was a social contract—not a welfare program—and participants were required to work at least 30 hours a week.; If you work you should not be poor,” New Hope designers believed. With poverty rates on the rise and with lower-wage service sector jobs replacing manufacturing and other higher-paying jobs, that belief resonates even more today. In 2004, 5.7 million adults were working full-time but still living in poverty, affecting 6.8 million children.; The designers knew well the history of many failed antipoverty policies. Therefore, they put their experiment to the test, hiring a group of leading researchers to evaluate its impact in the most scientific and rigorous way. The results are highly encouraging. Poverty rates declined dramatically. Employment and earnings increased among participants who were not initially working full-time. For those who had faced just one significant barrier to employment (such as a lack of access to child care or a spotty employment history), these gains lasted years. More medical needs were met. School performance improved, especially for boys. Behavior problems declined. Enrollment in child care centers increased. Participation in out-of-school activities increased.
Lois Brink and Beverly Kingston
Department of Landscape Architecture and Children, Youth and Environments Center
University of Colorado - Denver
May 2, 2006
The Effects of Elementary School Playground Renovations on the Physical Activity Levels of Children
This presentation will focus on how the redevelopment of Denver inner-city elementary school playgrounds influences the physical activity levels of minority and low socioeconomic status children. A high quality outdoor environment is hypothesized to attract children outdoors and to provide a broad range of opportunities for physical activity. These hypotheses are tested utilizing a quasi-experimental design that compares three newly renovated playgrounds and three playgrounds that were renovated over four years ago, to three control sites. To identify the playground variables with the greatest impact on children's physical activity, design experts divided the playgrounds into activity areas based on area type, size, and existence of permanent improvements. Measures of children's physical activity were obtained before school, during recess, and after school hours through direct observation using SOPLAY (System for Observing Play and Leisure Activity in Youth), a validated and reliable method for measuring physical activity. Analyses test for significant differences between the renovated playgrounds and the matched control groups and assess which areas of the playground account for the highest levels of physical activity. Preliminary results show that changing the built environment by building new playgrounds may significantly increase children's physical activity levels. Results from this study have the potential to influence key decision-makers to direct capital improvement funds towards building school playground environments that increase children^s physical activity. This research was carried out in the Children, Youth and Environments Center at the University of Colorado with a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Active Living Research program.
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PlatteForum Arts Organization
Denver
September 3-17, 2005
Streets of Hope: Images and Imaginings by Homeless Youth around the World
The Children, Youth and Environments Center for Research and Design at the University of Colorado Denver celebrates its grand opening with an exhibit of photographs and drawings by young people living on the streets in North and South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.
Illustrating both the everyday realities confronted by insecurely housed children and their longed-for spaces of comfort, health and prosperity, the exhibit serves to spark discussions about how our society cares for its youth living in poverty. The exhibit features images of life on the streets from the perspectives of youth who participated in two international projects that resulted in the books, Home/Life: 121 Kids from 11 Cities Photograph Their World, published in 2002 by the Homeless World Foundation; and If I Had the Chance…Artwork from the Streets of Asia and the Pacific, published this year by the Asian Development Bank.
When the 150 photographs from Home/Life went on display in Amsterdam, the exhibit attracted more than 36,000 visitors. Culled from 15,000 images by youth around the world, the photos powerfully depict the places, people and events that make life meaningful to young people living at the margins of society. If I Had the Chance … features drawings made by youth as part of the Asian Development Bank’s second annual Children’s Art Competition. ADB recently won two International Association of Business Communication awards for the book. The CYE Center is proud to bring both of these displays to PlatteForum Arts Organization, hailed by Westword as Denver’s “Best Art Gallery for Kids, 2004.”
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