10 Mar Greetings from East LA receives LRNG Innovators Challenge Award!
On March 10, 2016, Greetings from East LA was awarded one of the eleven national 2015 LRNG Innovators Challenge Awards!
Greetings from East LA – a partnership between East Los Angeles Renaissance Academy at Esteban Torres High School (ELARA), the Public Matters team including Fellow Andy Alvarez (a former ELARA student), and architect/social impact designer Theresa Hwang – is a pilot community asset map and participatory design project about East LA landmarks and “stars” as determined by ELARA students.
We started in the classroom in February, with the seniors exploring the values that high school students assign to people and places in their community. Throughout the semester, their work on the project will blend elements of art, design, urban planning and community journalism. Ultimately, the students will assemble an East LA version of the “Map to the Stars” while connecting with larger community conversations around East LA planning and economic development goals.
The project includes a number of other collaborators:
- USC Price Professor of Urban Planning David Sloane; and
- LA Times HS Insider.
With ELARA, the project team applied to the 2015 LRNG Innovators Challenge. The award is…”challenging teachers themselves to reach beyond the schoolhouse door to develop partnerships and programs that connect in-school and out-of-school learning and create opportunities for young people to follow their interests and do ambitious work. With support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, LRNG Innovators is investing in teams of teachers committed to exploring how learning experiences can move fluidly and coherently across the spheres of formal and informal learning.” We’re thrilled to be part of the cohort and to find out about the work of others within the world of connected learning.
To find out about the parties behind the LRNG Innovators Challenge and read the press release, check out Educator Innovator, LRNG, or the National Writing Project.