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One group of students focused on the paths to Coy Field, and a second group focused on Coy Field itself. Then we printed a second, larger map – this one was 36 by 44 inches – and had students transfer their notes onto the map along with additional ideas for discussion.

Students were asked to mark the maps to identify different issues they experienced while walking to and using Coy Field.

#STEM CAREERS WORD SEARCH SERIES#

The first thing we did was print 11-by-17-inch sheets of paper that featured maps of Coy Field and the surrounding area, along with a series of questions. Through the initiative, we held five meetings with 44 juniors from two classes at Hughes STEM High School.Īfter students told us they wanted to improve the conditions of their playing field, School of Planning faculty members and students helped the Hughes students tackle the problem as if they were urban planners. The Activate Community Empowerment initiative – or ACE – was a three-week outreach program to help high school students, counselors and teachers become aware of the urban planning profession.

Resolution Productions/Tetra images via Getty Images The process of planning The urban planning field suffers from a lack of racial diversity. In March 2016, School of Planning faculty members and students launched the Activate Community Empowerment initiative in an effort to turn things around. They also admitted that they weren’t recommending urban planning as a career path. We soon discovered that the educators and counselors were generally unfamiliar with the urban planning profession. In an effort to understand why this was happening, we met with educators and counselors in the Cincinnati Public Schools. Between 20 there was a 23% decline in high school students enrolling in the program. That’s when we noticed a precipitous drop in enrollment in the urban planning bachelor’s degree program at the University of Cincinnati, where two of us currently work. The reality of the lack of awareness of urban planning as a profession hit home for us in 2016. In the United Kingdom, just 6.24% of the more than 27,000 members of U.K.‘s Royal Town Planning Institute are “ Black, Asian or from minority ethnic groups,” compared with 18% of the population. We’ve found that these things are true around the world.įor instance, in Canada, 18.8% of the more than 8,000 members of the Canadian Institute of Planners are nonwhite, compared with 22.3% for the population. There are also about twice as many male urban planners as there are females in the profession. For instance, in the U.S., of the 40,000 or so members of the American Planning Association, only 13% are nonwhite, compared with 24.5% of the U.S. It also suffers from a profound lack of diversity. We wanted young people to know that urban planning is also a profession that will enable them to literally change the world around them.ĭespite the rewards of being an urban planner – and despite the fact that more than 50% of the world’s population lives in cities – both scholars and practitioners agree that few young people know about this profession. Employment in the field is projected to grow by 4% between 20 from 41,900 jobs in 2021. The median income for urban planners in the U.S. It’s a profession that pays quite well and is expected to grow significantly in the coming years. When we invited Hughes students in 2016 to identify a part of their campus that needed an upgrade, we actually had a higher purpose in mind: We wanted to introduce the students to urban planning as a profession.

We are urban planning scholars with interest in land use planning, ecological planning and design and urban green space planning. Students also had to walk the 10 minutes it takes to get to the field along narrow streets.

Students said they felt uncomfortable and unsafe using the field because of its unkempt conditions. When students at Hughes STEM High School in Cincinnati were asked back in 2016 what part of their school they’d like to improve, they identified Coy Field – an athletic field they use for baseball, softball, track and football.

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