Davis
Creek Elementary's FLL #836 Sponsors
"No Limits"
Playground 4 All
5th grade students at Davis Creek Elementary,
near Barboursville, West Virginia have been researching planning, designing,
and building playgrounds that are accessible to children of all mobilities.
This playground would allow all participating students to make full use
of activities available. One component that the students insisted
on including is that all children be on the same level while playing.
In other words, a child in a wheelchair would be able to play with a mobile
child at the same sand box because the wheel chair would roll up to it
and fit under the playing level.
Another idea was to use rubber carpeting to
absorb shocks and protect children from injury.
The students were divided into four groups for research, planning, designing,
and building purposes. Each student drew a playground plan after
viewing playgrounds on the internet and discussing components and requirements
with their team members. The plans were brought back together for
further discussion, and each team chose the most important components of
their team members plans. Our next step was to bring everyone together
for making a master plan. We began by listing each group's top picks,
and grouping them into categories that might go together in a real playground.
Our master plan was divided into four major parts, as depicted in the pictures
below.
Area one has the maze, hiking trail, swings, slides, jungle gym, and nature
center, complete with a petting zoo. Area two has the zoo, the plant
area with gardening for everyone, an aquarium-fossil house, a butterfly
house, surrounded by a butterfly garden, and the science center that houses
hands-on activites for all ages. The pictures below show the
planning, designing, and building stages of our research playground.
The following page shows more detailed images of the finished product.
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DC 5th graders used their research and
planning to build their dream playground that would enable children of
all mobilities access to all areas and activities offered. In constructing
this playground our community was made aware of the limitations faced by
many children forced to play on unfairly segregated playgrounds.
We had adults, teachers, and students from other classes visiting our classroom
to take a guided tour of our DC "No Limits" Playgrouand.
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11 / 15 / 2004
S. Simon
