Engaging Students in Transforming Their Built Environment via Y-PLAN

Lessons from Richmond, California

Authors

  • Deborah McKoy
  • Jessie Stewart
  • Shirl Buss

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7721/chilyoutenvi.25.2.0229

Keywords:

participatory planning, place-conscious education, youth participation

Abstract

This field report describe show high school students from Richmond, California used an innovative educational strategy called Y-PLAN (Youth –Plan, Learn, Act, Now) to actively participate in the planning and transformation of their school, neighborhoods and city. Our description follows students through the five-step Y-PLAN process, highlighting how they effectively challenged the ways in which unhealthy environments and adult-oriented urban planning and policy making structure disadvantage and undermine trajectories of opportunity. In doing so, the report illustrate show Y-PLAN can equip young people from low-income communities with the tools they need to become agents of positive change, and informs a discussion for planners and educators of the essential conditions that structure that agency.

Published

2022-11-07