| Description: | The Community as Classroom (CAC) is a project-based program at PS 37 Marva J. Daniel Futures Preparatory School (Futures Academy) in the Fruit Belt neighborhood of Buffalo that involves the children in solving real-world problems that are related to neighborhood development and creative place-making. The CAC attempts to motivate 5th-8th grade students in an underperforming school by showing them the connection between lessons learned in the classroom and their abilities to build better neighborhoods and cities. This is done through action-based projects that grapple with real issues facing the Fruit Belt, the East Side and neighborhoods across the Buffalo and Greater Niagara Region. The goal is to increase student learning by showing them the utilitarian value of education, and demonstrating how knowing and learning can be used to improve the quality of their lives. The program is not only unique in how it approaches teaching and learning — utilizing UB undergraduate and graduate students from various departments across campus as instructors — but also the way in which it uses children as catalytic agents with the capacity to change the neighborhoods in which they are embedded. The CAC is a place-conscious approach to education that creates highly interactive linkages and connections between home and family, school, and neighborhood. It also teaches inner city elementary students about neighborhood development and urban planning and how they can help redevelop the communities in which they live and go to school if they are willing to put forth the effort. It produces not only good students but also civically engaged residents dedicated to building a better city. |
| Project/Activity Leader(s): | Henry L. Taylor, Professor and Director, Center for Urban Studies |
| Unit: | School of Architecture and Planning |
| Department: | Urban and Regional Planning |
| City: | Buffalo |
| State: | NY |
| Country: | United States |
| External Funding: | Yes |
| Funding Source: | Erie County Youth Bureau |
| Start Date: | 2001 |
| End Date: | active |
| Internal Partners: | Graduate School of Education; School of Social Work; School of Engineering and Applied Sciences |
| External Partners: | PS 37 Marva J. Daniel Futures Preparatory School (Futures Academy) |
| Are UB students involved? | Yes |
