1st-Graders Build Town From Trash

Using everything from toothpicks and toilet paper rolls to cereal boxes and egg cartons, first-grade students from Hope View Elementary School in Huntington Beach recently built a model city from recycled trash after learning the concepts of urban planning.

For the last month, local architects have volunteered their time in the classroom to share their expertise on urban design issues with the junior city planners as they prepared to construct a town out of everyday trash.

In teams of two, the students collected trash from home and, with the help of construction paper and a lot of glue, created different buildings for their town, transforming the odds and ends into colorful structures that included a fire station, hospital, church, parks, community center, post office and toy store.

“It was fun because you could use your imagination,” said Daniel Puffpaff, 7, who made a skating rink for the city. “It takes a lot of cooperation to build a city.”

The “Boomtown” project at Hope View was developed through the American Institute of Architects’ “Built Environment Education Program.” Nationally developed and sponsored, the program was conducted on a pilot basis at six county elementary schools last spring, organizer Barbara Helton said.

This year, the program grew to include 20 schools across the county.

“It’s a wonderful program,” said Helton, an architect with Thomas Blurock Architects in Costa Mesa. “It’s extremely rewarding.”

In the program, architects volunteer in a classroom once a week to teach students about urban planning issues. Incorporating the regular classroom curriculum with city development slides and pictures of the children’s community, the architects discuss with students what types of commercial, residential or recreational buildings are found in cities, where they are located and why they are important.

“It really dovetailed with everything we do in second grade,” said Faith Dennis, a teacher at Bathgate Elementary School in Mission Viejo, whose class participated in the program. “I would definitely do it again.”

After viewing the city completed by her class, Hope View first-grader Christina Pitkin said the Boomtown project was fun.

“We learned that it’s good to build a city because you need houses and a place to live,” she said.