School Zone Safety

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Focus Area

Public Art

Partner

Working to make communities safer around schools

3M is partnering with local organizations throughout the world to make schools safer for students, parents, and the community. In Nashville, 3M chose Robert Churchwell Elementary to be the first project to showcase how schools can improve safety through improvements to roadways, design, and streetscape changes, as well as through placemaking and art. Education and improving the safety of public spaces for the youth and their families can help create a better sense of belonging and pride for Nashville neighborhoods and can lead to a better quality of life for all Nashvillians. As part of the Nashville project, the Civic Design Center acted as both the community liaison and project leader for improvements made at Robert Churchwell Elementary and additional schools throughout Nashville.

This project supports our Guiding Principles for Public Art, Health, and Celebrating Streets. Check out the Guiding Principles to learn more about our goals.

Mural by Woke3 on an exterior wall of Robert Churchwell Elementary School.

About The Project

There are four major components of this project; youth engagement at Robert Churchwell Elementary (RCE), Mural and Placemaking at RCE with a local artist, Traffic Calming improvements near the school, and a painting challenge at middle school’s across Davidson County.

Images above show Rober Churchwell Elementary students using 3M products to create their vision for a school mural involving community and safety.

The Design Center has worked with local artist Woke3 and Community Leader Angel Adams to complete student engagement and the mural on the school property. In addition, the streetscaping improvements completed adjacent to the school were completed by a local engineering firm. These improvements include added crosswalks, a bike lane, new striping, and delineators to help with roadway and pedestrian safety.

On October 24th, 2022 all the community partners gathered at the Light House Mural at Robert Churchwell Museum Magnet Elementary School to celebrate the hard work and what this piece of public art means to the students, school staff, and community members.

The image above shows community partners. From left to right: Jacob Pawelczyk (Government Transportation Safety Specialist at 3M), Kenneth Bonner, Jr (Principle at Robert Churchwell Elementary), Community Member, Woke 3 (Education is a lighthouse Muralist), Angle Adams (Community Leader), Eric Hoke (Design Director at Civic Design Center), and Representative Harold M. Love, Jr. (District 58 Representative).

Project Components

Youth Engagement

To begin the project, Woke3, Angel Adams, and Civic Design Center Staff worked with the art teacher at Robert Churchwell Elementary to showcase how a variety of the 3M materials can be used to make a creative piece of art that uses reflectivity to enhance safety. The students learned how you can use unconventional materials to create a work of art.

The students also worked with Woke3 to create a small, temporary lighthouse mural before the creation of the full-size mural at the school.

Traffic Calming and Streetscaping

3M partnered with Collier’s engineering to design and implement new streetscaping along Dr. D.B Todd Jr. Blvd. and make improvements to some of the roadways on the Robert Churchwell Elementary campus. In conjunction with the permanent changes, the Civic Design Center also created visuals and ideas for tactical urbanism opportunities around the campus.

These traffic calming efforts better connected the neighborhood to the school through the addition of crosswalks and directional arrows to make it easier for buses and vehicles to navigate at Robert Churchwell Elementary.

Placemaking and Mural by Woke3

Public Art can be a major contribution to the safety and comfort of a space. For the Robert Churchwell Elementary mural, Woke3 worked with the students to create the concept and idea of the lighthouse concept. Throughout the summer, Woke3 worked to complete the mural and

Woke3’s artist statement begins with “Education is a lighthouse – guiding us towards safety, connectivity, and advancing the human quest for meaning.”

Paint Challenge

In conjunction with the work at Robert Churchwell Elementary, the Civic Design Center, as part of it’s “Design Your Neighborhood” program, completed installations across Nashville where middle school students designed and installed safety improvements across their campus using paint to help improve their school zone’s safety.

The Design Your Neighborhood program installed 4 different placemaking measures.