Box City and Beyond
The City has been built, the placement and replacement has taken place. What next? What else is there to do with Box City? These events can take place after a classroom Box City or a Festival Box City. Help students reflect on the Box City they have created. For younger students, provide cardboard tubes or "lookers" (paper towel or other) to focus their thinking.
Evaluation
Creat a "Report Card for a Building" or a community using the guidelines you set up for developing the city. You may have used the theme of Kid Friendly, or Sustainable, or used the tenets of Traditional Neighborhood Development or New Urbanism. As with all activities, the creation of such activities is not necessarily the instructor's responsibility. Older or the most motivated students can participate in the creation of this activity and others. See An Architectural Value System in Box City or Report Card for a Building in Walk around the Block.
Box City News
Students can write an article with illustrations for The Box City News. Younger students may simply draw a view of the city.
Travel Brochure
Who will want to visit the city? What will they experience? what should they see first? A travel brochure or video (an opportunity to bring in technical skills) is a natural. This might be presented to guests or parents in order to help focus their thinking.
Grid the City
Set cones at intervals around the edge (in a gym, use 7 cones down one side, 5 cones across the other way) making 24 grid spaces. Station a student at each cone, with the job of stringholder, to create a grid. Between each pair of cones, seat another student who holds up a coordinate sign. e.g.1,2,3...A,B,C. This engages two classes worth of students at a time. Then we move people around the inside of the grid, doing directional stuff, figuring out what grid is where, etc.
Scale Plan View
And finally, if we have plenty of spare time and had prepped the kids with a grid drawing activity beforehand-have every student accurately draw a scale plan view of what's in his grid. Put the squares up all together on a wall to make a great map of the city, this is a way to remember the city after it is gone.
Scavenger Hunt
Everybody likes a good Scavenger Hunt or City Game. The older students can create them. Run them off for people to do as they tour the city. Keep them to about 10 items, with simple illustrations, sometimes with tie-ins to their real town buildings, if they replicated their own communities. Ask questions like: Can you find the clock tower? What time is it in Box City? Where is the eagle on a flagpole? What does it stand for? How many domes can you find? Can you find a building with three round windows? Can you find the hospital on Washington Street? Who is sitting on the bench in front of town hall?
World Town Planning Day
In 2001, World Town Planning Day is November 8. Visit http://www.planning.org/abtaicp/world.htm for more information.
Placement of buildings
When Kathering Glass contacts a Box City (Tabletop), each student makes a building and in additiona makes his/her own house. The buildings are all palce before the students are asked, "Now, where would you like for your house to be?" A lively discussion and a lot of rearranging take place in order to develop the neighborhoods that the "citizens" want.
The Wild Card
An assessment of sorts (and excitement) involves the introduction of a "Wild Card" building after the initial Box City is completed. Ask the City Planner, Neighborhood Activist, or design professional who is coming to help with the placement to produce this building unbeknownst to the students. It could be the building that is not initially welcome to the neighborhood: a half-way house, an inappropriate bookstore, multi-family housing or a prison. It could be a zoning issue such as Zero Population Growth or a Green Belt. It could be the introduction of a use not formerly allowed such as a "Granny Flat" or an outbuilding. It could be a building that is over-scale (Big Box Store, hotel or skyscraper) or a new plant that would offer benefits to the community, but it could be environmentally or aesthetically incorrect. As the students deal unexpectedly with this new issue, the skills they have developed during the Box City process will become apparent. Refer to the GeoBlock Activity, Natural and Manmade Disasters in the Box City curriculum.
