The Ask Project: Connecting young people with place

Tools and techniques

The project involved four consultation programmes in the UK and four in Japan using proven techniques developed by Sensory Trust and ACE. In these sessions we worked directly with young people to understand their needs and with education workers and designers of public open spaces to increase their awareness of the importance of the outdoors for children.

The sites

UK consultation sessions were run at the Eden Project in Cornwall, UK. Eden Project is a large environmental education project that attracts over 1.7 million visitors per year. It is an ideal place to explore children’s responses and to find out how well outdoor places are meeting the needs of young people. Disabled and non-disabled children worked together using site evaluation techniques to collect their responses to Eden’s landscapes and any ideas for improvements. They also took part in the early stages of the development of a new garden area. Their ideas and responses were used by Eden’s landscape architect to develop the detailed garden design. Subsequent consultation was organised to evaluate the success of the garden after it had been built.

Sessions were also held at Doubletrees School, a special school catering for young people with a range of disabilities. At Doubletrees School the focus was on the development of the school grounds to create a richer learning environment. Disabled children and children at risk of exclusion worked together to create designs and maps using symbols, pictures, colours and text. The results could be used by the school as a basis for future design work.

The sites were chosen partly for their contrast in scale and type of facilities; Eden Project has a well established education programme that makes good use of a rich landscape and good facilities. Doubletrees School has relatively uninspiring grounds and limited facilities for children to use outdoors. 62 young people were involved between the ages of 10 – 16, along with education workers and site managers.

In Japan, 36 children ranging in age from 10 to 16 were involved in the Sessions along with education workers and site managers. The sessions enabled them to share opinions on site facilities, barriers to access, services and experience. They raised awareness of diversity amongst non-disabled children, education workers and open space designers.

Consultation sessions were run at the Institute for Nature Study in Tokyo involving children from Aiiku Special School. The Institute is maintained by the Ministry of Education, Science and Sports and was an ideal opportunity for evaluating a site that is focused on nature-based education.

Sessions at Jindai Botanical Garden (maintained by Tokyo Metroplitan) involved 4 disabled and 12 non-disabled children from Musashino Higashi School. This was a good chance to focus on a site where the focus is more on the provision of public space for all different people to enjoy.

Sessions at Shinjuku National Garden (owned by Ministry of the Environment). These involved children from Seicho Special School, secondary school pupils with mild intellectual disabilities who are learning horticulture.

In the UK and Japan sessions we were interested to explore the following issues –
• How well existing facilities meet the needs of disabled and non-disabled children
• How the responses and ideas of children and practitioners can feed into the development of outdoor designs
• The value of disabled and non-disabled children working together

Techniques

The Ask project was designed to build on previous work of ACE and Sensory Trust. We worked with small groups of children so that we could test new consultation techniques and obtain detailed responses. The techniques were designed to be as non-prescriptive as possible so that children felt able to express their ideas freely instead of thinking there were right and wrong answers. We also selected a range of sites so we could test the effectiveness of these techniques in a range of settings.

We used the following techniques as a basis for the consultation sessions:

1. Sensory mapping

This is an activity through which children and practitioners create maps of an area to record different sensory highlights. It is an excellent way of helping people to read their landscape in ways that encompass all of the senses. For sighted people it encourages them to go beyond a visual appreciation of their surroundings. In a group of mixed abilities it is a valuable way of helping children and practitioners to understand that different people perceive the world in different ways.

2. Memory books

These are workbooks that enable children to evaluate a site and to record their opinions and feelings. They used Widgit symbols – a communication system based on the use of pictograms to assist young people with learning disabilities that are unable to read text. Children at risk of exclusion worked with disabled children using Widgit stickers to express their opinions on site facilities, barriers to access, services and experiences.

This enabled text-literate children to work alongside children with limited literacy. The workbooks were developed in both English and Japanese and the Widgit stickers were translated into Japanese for use in the Tokyo consultation sessions.

The books were kept by the children so they provided ongoing memories of taking part in these sessions. They could also be used by the children and their families and schools on future visits to the sites.

3. Design Scrapbooks

Design scrapbooks encourage children to be creative and show how they would change their environment to make it more interesting for them and other children. These also used Widgit symbols. Design cards were created by each student using pictures, drawings and materials to illustrate their ideas. These then became part of a group scrapbook for future reference.

Disabled children and children at risk of exclusion worked together to create designs and maps of their local places using symbols, pictures, colours and text.

4. Disposable cameras

Disposable cameras give children a way of recording personal responses to the places they are exploring. They are particularly valuable for children that find it difficult to express themselves verbally or through writing. A disposable camera was provided for each child and they were free to take pictures of anything that interested them during the consultation session.

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