The community as text : using planning as a vehicle for interdisciplinary education

Many American schools fail to teach students about the built environment. However, there is both scholarly and anecdotal evidence that using students' communities as a teaching tool is an effective method for increasing student engagement and increased knowledge retention, as well as improving their knowledge transfer and higher-level thinking skills. In this thesis, I argue that schools are missing an educational opportunity to by failing to incorporate students' neighborhoods into curricula in a sustained and interdisciplinary way. I argue that planning is an ideal vehicle for interdisciplinary education, but is also a worthwhile topic as an end in itself, teaching students about republicanism and civic engagement at a local level. This thesis looks at three programs that teach students about the built environment, and then offer a case study of how a more sustained program could implemented in an eighth-grade classroom in Dorchester, Massachusetts.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2011

Author dc:creator

• Ritchie, Frances C. (Frances Cunningham)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Anne Whiston Spirn.

• Urban Studies and Planning.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/67236

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/67236