My School Can Be Cool
12-18 years
DURATION: 1 lesson/week every 2 weeks for a school year
IMPLEMENTATION OPTIONS:
– one school year – 6th/ 7th/ 9th/ 10th/ 11th grade – extracurricular
– one school year – group of maximum 25 students from different classes – extracurricular
TEACHING METHOD: project learning, participatory design
TYPE OF CURRICULUM: interdisciplinary and integrative (arts + sciences)
GUIDED BY: teacher (coordinator) + architect (resource person and facilitator) + occasional contributors: teachers of various disciplines or specialists in the field of the built environment
PLACE: Classroom/online, school building and yard
ACTIVE: since 2016
PARTNER:
The educational program My School Can Be Cool (called “De a architectura in my school” between 2015-2021) is aimed at students, teachers and architects for whom the school space is important in the educational process. The everyday users of the school are best able to discover the advantages and disadvantages created by learning spaces, but also to imagine what they would like their school to be like.
Students, with the help of teachers and architects (resource person) reach a concrete set of intervention objectives. By consensus, a project will be chosen and then detailed to be effectively implemented through the mobilized resources. Along the way, students become more aware of the relationship between the built environment and well-being, apply the acquired knowledge to various subjects, develop their creativity, initiative and skill. The entire project team will also be involved in the actual implementation of the interventions.
The online guide “My School Can Be Cool“ is the working tool of students, architects and teachers alike. Here you find support, inspiration and documentation resources for all project stages.
Every year, in May, the Architecture Association will carry out a selection of the proposed projects and will grant funding, to one or more teams, depending on the resources attracted that year, in an estimated amount of 2500 euros/team, to the projects that best meet the criteria of the program:
- great impact in the social life of the school;
- many users will benefit from the project;
- the low cost that can best fit into the sponsorship received;
- reduced implementation effort;
- the ability to become an example for other schools to follow;
- the ability to involve students in its realization;
- the architectural quality of the obtained project;
- does not require a building permit.
All implemented projects are published in the ȘCOALA MEA project gallery that I created so that other students, teachers and architects can benefit from the experience gained in this program, which has been running since 2015.
Resources:
- Video gallery: playlist ▼
Sponsors:
Fundaţia Comunitară Braşov Romanian-American Foundation through Fondul Ştiinţescu Braşov, Digital Spirit. Holcim, Holver.
Bachmann, Fundația Comunitară București through Mobilizăm Excelența programme of Porsche România.