Co-creation with children for designing tomorrow’s cities and mobility

Today’s children are tomorrow’s adults; active consumers of mobility services and urban space. Co-creation of knowledge workshops involving children can lead to the acquisition of a fresh sensitivity and competence by city/town administrators and technicians. Children can be asked and listened to. To make this educational activity meaningful, children who participated in the project should be able to carry out some of their ideas for improving their community, and in allowing so, to visualise the belief that they can produce significant changes if they set out for it. The most valuable lessons start with a real action for change. A town where children and the elderly are comfortable is a town with a good quality of life, where everyone can live well.

Today’s children are tomorrow’s adults; active consumers of mobility services and urban space.

Projects such as the “City of Children” show how co-production of knowledge workshops involving children can lead to the acquisition of a fresh sensitivity and competence by city/town administrators and technicians. A town where children and the elderly are comfortable is a town with a good quality of life, where everyone can live well. Children are the best guarantee of the needs of all citizens. A child friendly village is a town for all, as writes Francesco Tonucci, Italian pedagogue, in his book “The City of Children”. On the other hand, allowing children to participate in improving towns and cities enhances their self-esteem, and autonomy.

(City of Children project was originally established in Fanno, Italy and since 2006 it has been coordinated by the Italian National Research Council Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies. More than 100 Italian and international cities have signed up for the project, making up the “cities of children” network, with Rome as the main city. www.lacittadeibambini.org)

Children can be asked and listened to. One way to do it well is following the process called co-creation, where intuition, observation, and generating emotionally significant ideas are reinforced. In the process, children gain empathy for their community, search and select creative solutions in a group, rehearse or prototype their ideas and ultimately reflect on the process of co-creation they have experienced. This process is based on the principle of learning by doing, therefore encouraging experimentation.

Feel! (First stage): We encouraged students to think about their community and their lives, the physical infrastructure and spaces, social traditions and culture, and to ask themselves “What is bothering me in my town? What would I like to see changed?” The process was simple, they thought something, they wrote it, they spoke it out aloud and they put it on the board. Once we had information, we asked students to come out to the board to sort out all notes on observations having greater background in common. Then we talked about how they could express synthetically what each of those groups of notes was about. Children voted for the situations that they would best like to see changed.

Imagine! (second stage): We invited students to imagine what they could do to improve. Since the best way to find good ideas is to generate many ideas together, they had a brainstorm. On a large sheet of paper we began to write down ideas. We encouraged them to take bold, imaginative ideas, without judging any proposals and building on others’ ideas. Many ideas came out, some to them very good.

Do! (Make a prototype, “first issue” of an idea): On Monday April 18 we organized groups for each of the activities they proposed as a solution. It was fun to work together making a first prototype or visual examples of their ideas. Making prototypes helped them to better define what they wanted and to better explain their wishes. At the end of the day, students in 3^rd and 4^th grades made a theatrical performance and both groups showed prototypes of how they wanted to see their town changed. Currently, all prototypes are exposed at school.

Next steps: To make this educational activity meaningful, children who participated in the project should be able to carry out some of their ideas for improving their community, and in allowing so, to visualise the belief that they can produce significant changes if they set out for it. The most valuable lessons start with a real action for change. Students will soon go out to identify the places in the village where action can be taken and will then present their proposals to the town mayor, with the idea that some activities could be implemented during the town summer festival this year.