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In Designing a Liveable City - Part 1, students designed a town In Designing a Liveable City - Part 2, students completed a self-assessment of their town. In Designing a Liveable City - Part 3, students gave and received peer feedback on their towns and responded to the feedback. In Designing a Liveable City - Part 4, students developed their towns working in a larger group, by applying the 5Cs of community building. When students arrive in the class all group tasks have been attached together to make one large city. Some additional land/building spaces has also been added (additional pieces of paper). Students are still responsible for their own area and ensuring the liveability of their residents, but they will now have a say in how the whole city develops. Students will be provided with a number of development proposals that will go before a combined council meeting involving the whole class. They are provided with 5 minutes in their original group to determine which of the developments they might like in/near their original development area. They will also need to assess how each of the developments will impact on liveability of residents. 
Developments:
Highway A new highway has been built along the edge of the city. Parts of the city which are connected to the highway will have greater access to other parts of the city, other cities and regional areas. However, people around the area of the off-ramp will also be negatively affected by construction and possibly some demolition to make way for new roads. You will need to decide where the off-ramps for the highway will be located. You are allowed to have three off-ramps in total. (Off ramps - minimum 8 cm long) Resort Complex A large multination corporation wants to build a resort complex and marina. It will include several large hotels, a golf course, and specially designed harbour with moorings for yachts and pleasure craft (boats). It needs to be located on the coastline to take advantage of beach locations and provide an appropriate location for the marina. It also needs to be accessible by road. Choose an appropriate location. (Marina - 8cx8cm, resort complex 10cmx10cm). Recreational Complex The Federal government is going to provide substantial funding for a recreation and lifestyle complex and regional park. It will include a number of tennis courts, basketball/netball courts, soccer fields, football fields, as well as some open parkland with bike paths and foot paths. The complex will contribute positively to the quality of life of your residents. Choose an appropriate location. (Recreation complex 12 cmx12cm). National Park Lobbyists have proposed the creation of a national park. The park will protect environmental quality, provide opportunities for recreation (e.g. bushwalking, mountain climbing or snorkelling), and provide opportunities for tourism activities. Choose an appropriate location for the national park (12 cmx12cm). Technology hub A giant technology firm wants to set up a Tech Hub which will include a number of start-up businesses (new, small businesses) as well as several large technology businesses all in the one space. This will provide opportunities for employment in the city. (Tech Hub – 10cmx10cm) Assessing impact As individuals, students need to consider how each of these proposals will impact on liveability for residents, by determining the pros and cons of each proposal. Proposing a site In their original groups, students need to choose the proposal they are most interested in, propose an appropriate site and explain the impact on liveability. Council meeting As a whole class, the students will need to make decisions by consensus, debating and assessing the developments for Liveability. They will need to determine which developments will go ahead, and the best locations for each development proposal.
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In Designing a Liveable City - Part 1, students designed a town In Designing a Liveable City - Part 2, students completed a self-assessment of their town. In Designing a Liveable City - Part 3, students gave and received peer feedback on their towns and responded to the feedback. When students arrive for this lesson, their towns have changed. The work of two groups has been joined together, so that two towns are now stuck together with some blank space in between. After working together with the one group for a while, at first students may be a little reluctant to work with others in a bigger group, but before long you will find that they will get on board knowing that they have more space to expand their town. Begin the lesson by revising content about Community and the characteristics that influence community identity. Discuss different suburbs or towns close to the school and how each of them have different identities and why. Discuss the culture of different places, and how the culture is expressed through public events and architecture. Revise the role of transport, technology, open spaces, meeting places and employment in building community. Read: The 5 "Cs" of community planning The students will be able to use the 5 "Cs" to guide the way they continue to develop their towns. Students move to their new, combined town and begin working with a larger group. They need to begin by explaining the different aspects of their initial town with the other half of the group and vice versa. Next they need to join the two towns together with roads and public transport and negotiate on how the land between the two towns will be used. Give them a set period of time (5-10 minutes depending on how much is left of the lesson) to work on each of the 5 'Cs'. At the end of the lesson they need to do a quick reassessment of the liveability of their new town based on the criteria provided in the previous lesson.  In Designing a Liveable City - Part 1, students designed a town. In Designing a Liveable City - Part 2, students completed a self-assessment of their town. Peer feedback provides an opportunity for students to assess liveability in a practical way, and also allows students to reflect on the feedback of others to make improvement in liveability. Hints on providing feedback. It is important to provide some guidance to students on how to provide effective feedback to their peers. If feedback is too harsh or personal it will not have the desired effect on progress. Provide the students with a brief criteria to base their judgements on, and go through the items listed to ensure the students know what all of the terms mean and the purpose of the task. In this case the criteria is a list of items that contribute to liveability. Students might just make simple suggestions such as "You need to build a high school" or "You need to build a hospital", but hopefully they will provide more detailed responses that indicate more knowledge of course content. In this lesson there were 6 groups of students, and each group rotated around to comment on the town plans of each other group. They were given "Peer Pointer Postcards" to write their comments on. They then returned to their own town map and had to reflect on the feedback given and consider changes to make to their plan. It is worth asking students to hand in their peer feedback to the teacher so you can check the comments that are made. This can then enable the teacher to ask the student to review any comments that are too personal or not detailed enough. Hints on receiving feedback Students who aren't used to peer feedback, may initially become defensive or upset about negative feedback. As the teacher it is important to prepare the students so they are ready and willing to accept ideas from others. A few tips for students:
 In Designing a Liveable City - Part 1, students designed a city. Once students have planned their city, they need to undertake a self assessment of their work. As a group they can sit and talk about the different aspects of their city and how they have addressed liveability. Provide them with a criteria to refer to. This might also be a good opportunity to provide students with a summary of the content that has been covered in class in relation to liveability, so that they can make connections between the activity they have been undertaking and course content.
The aim of this series of lessons is to allow students to apply their understanding of Liveability to a city design task. Students work in groups of 2-3 to design a small town, as the activity progresses they will reflect on what they have learnt in the Place and Liveability topic and apply it to their town. Phase 1: Design your town The first phase of this task involves designing the layout of the town. This will involve the initial road layout, agricultural land uses, some initial commercial land uses, power supply, and water storage. Provide some student choices so that you can provide a few variations in the first round of feedback. Provide students with a base page ( it may or may not have some geographical features on it such as mountains, coastline, rivers, etc). Also provide students with some blank, coloured pieces of paper, or you can copy the templates onto coloured paper - green (agricultural land), blue (water storage), pink (commercial), red (power supply), grey (roads). 
Design feedback This is an opportunity to provide some initial feedback to ensure the students get the basics right. Design the feedback so that it refers to the students as though they are members of the local council. For example, “The roads in your town don’t meet the requirements set out by the state government. You have been asked to resurface and redesign your roads. You need to complete this job before anyone moves into your town.”
Phase 2: Moving in... In the second phase of the task, students design the residential layout and density of the town. By placing a relatively small limit on the number of dwellings students have to focus on the layout of the town in the initial phases. 
Town plan scenarios Provide students with some scenarios that will allow them to start to think about the liveability of their towns. By this stage some of the groups' conversations will have already addressed aspects of liveability, but they may not have actually considered in much depth. Students are required to write a brief description of how they addressed each scenario.
Phase 3: Enhancing liveability Students will need to respond to the scenarios above, and should have started to consider some of the additional needs of a community. As a class discuss the content related to liveability that you have already covered in class, and then provide students with time to make changes to their town plan.  Next... refer to Designing a Liveable City - Part 2.
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Louise SwansonDeputy Principal at a Sydney high school. Coordinating author of the new Geoactive book series. Archives
March 2021
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