High school Students map wellness data
The Youth Design Team is a result of a partnership with a research team at Vanderbilt Peabody College on a National Institute of Justice funded grant that has the goal of positively impacting the climate for youths in Nashville.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, school administrators and educators have been thinking of creative ways to make sure students won’t have any gaps in their education. The technology discrepancies across Nashville have called Mayor Cooper to provide internet hotspots and laptop computers to students who need them so they may have equal access to learning.
Considering the difficulties of getting students to participate in virtual learning, specialized curriculum, like civics, may take a backseat. We hope this won’t be the case. Not only is the Design Your Neighborhood STEAM curriculum integrated into state-standardized classes, but it encourages young people to learn how to take action in their communities. This is especially essential in the current political climate.
Following the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, Nashville has seen young people leading movements, ready to shape safer communities. When we called high school students to apply for a yearlong Youth Design Team internship geared towards making change in their communities, it is not surprising that we received so many applications. Young people are ready to share their unique perspectives.
What is the Youth Design Team?
14 high schoolers, each from a different high school, across Nashville Davidson County have joined Design Your Neighborhood as the Youth Design Team. While Design Your Neighborhood’s youth education curriculum serves 7th and 8th graders, these high schoolers have been trained to interview middle schoolers about factors that contribute or detract from their wellness and then map the data they get from their younger peers. Since the internship is for the full year, these interns will be experts in design thinking and the factors that could improve the wellness of middle schoolers in the Nashville area.
What has the Youth Design Team learned so far?
Getting Familiar with Mapping
During the last week of July, the Youth Design Team went through an intensive training so they could be ready to hit the ground running. The students spent much of the first day doing collaborative mapping exercises that intended to develop their spatial awareness skills. For instance, in small groups they had to figure out how to map their neighborhoods without looking at a map. We asked them things like: what's a street name you all know; what's a store in the area you are familiar with? These questions prompted the students to think about where landmarks are in relation to streets or other landmarks they know.
Placing Built Environment Factors on a Map
1) Neighborhood form (rural, suburban, urban, etc.), 2) Transportation, 3) Food Resources, 4) Parks & Open Spaces, 5) Housing, and 6) Neighborhood Identity are the 6 built environment factors that students learned how to identify.
Knowing about these factors allowed students to consider the current condition of these items in their neighborhood. They considered things like: are there parks in this 1-mile radius; are there more houses or apartment buildings; where can people get groceries; are there sidewalks and are they in good condition; what are the stores or physical features that make the neighborhood unique?
Once they answered those questions, they placed the landmarks on a map.
How the Conditions of the Built Environment Factors affect Wellness Factors
We gave students information on various factors of wellness, like mental, physical, and spiritual wellness and then we asked them, what do young people need to be “well”? They gave us varying reasons, and then we asked them to connect those reasons to specific wellness factors and specific built environment factors.
Mind map about various built environment factors and how they contribute to or detract from the wellness of young people
From Mapping Data to Making Change
Using all of this information, the Youth Design Team was prepared with questions that they would be asking their interviewees. They took two days to work independently, answering those questions themselves and mapping the results, as well as choosing 3 friends in which they would ask the same questions and map the results.
Examples of Interview Questions
Outside of school and home, what are the three places that you spend the most time?
What are reasons that people come to your community to either live or visit?
Can you think of an improvement that could be added near your school to improve wellness for your school community?
What places in your neighborhood take away from your recreational wellness?
What places in your neighborhood support your intellectual wellness?
Tracking Holistic Wellness using the Wellness Wheel
Based on the interviewee’s responses, the Youth Design Team made a chart that would represent their overall wellness. The chart is called the Wellness Wheel, and each factor is created based on a score out of 10. By taking this data, we can determine if the conditions of built environment factors contribute to or detract from the holistic wellness of young people.
The Wellness Wheel is a radar, or spider, chart showing the relationship of different types of wellness in interviewees
Long Term Impacts
Considering the relationship between the built environment and youth wellness, the goal is to be able to present this data to organizations and businesses that are interested in partnering on physical projects that could improve the quality of life for youth.
Youth Design Team interviews Metro Nashville Council Members, Sharon Hurt and Colby Sledge
Ultimately, we are determining what makes youth happy and healthy from their own perspectives. Often adults and professionals do not consider the youth perspective in civic design, but we believe that the composition of the community in which a young person grows up influences their entire identity.
If you are interested in learning more about the youth perspective, listen to the podcasts that 7th and 8th grade students have created through Design Your Neighborhood, and we assure that you will be moved by what you hear.