The Field Operations Team Visits East Palo Alto Phoenix Academy
Updates from the Y-PLAN Resilient by Design Youth Challenge
By Amanda Eppley, Director of Y-PLAN Initiatives, UC Berkeley CC+S
The Field Operations Team piloted materials for their upcoming interactive community workshop with the East Palo Alto Phoenix Academy (EPAPA) Y-PLAN class last Thursday. After presenting a powerpoint introduction to their Resilient by Design approach, the Field Operations Team provided students with a "kit of parts" for them to place along a rough map of the waterfront to show their ideas to redesign the Bay Edge.
After class, students led the Field Operations Team on a trek two blocks from their school to the waterfront trail, through the rain and mud, to explain to the team members the importance of the recognizable tidal flats along their slice of the Bay to their community identity.
It was an inspiring day for everyone, as students learned directly from the Design Team about sea level rise, wave mitigation, and groundwater tables, research the team is using to prepare for ideas for a climate resilient East Palo Alto. Meanwhile, the Field Operations Team heard first hand from the students about which uses are most important to them, from plazas to grocery stores, and the vital importance of affordable housing for the future of their community.
About the Y-PLAN Resilient by Design Youth Challenge
A partnership of Resilient by Design and Y-PLAN through the UC Berkeley's Center for Cities+Schools (CC+S), the Y-PLAN Resilient by Design Youth Challenge" is a parallel design challenge in which young people in communities around the Bay Area work engage with experts and local stakeholders to co-design innovative and implementable solutions, emphasizing the interconnectedness of land, water, infrastructure and the quality of life—with local specificity and ownership. CC+S is committed to working with youth and schools furthest from opportunity, or “at risk”, and in greatest need of access to opportunities, such as Y-PLAN, that are academically rigorous, relevant to their lives and meaningful to their whole communities.