What if?

Design challenge encourages young minds to think outside the box

The Pokémon headlines over the summer about the latest video-game craze shone a spotlight on young people suddenly finding themselves outdoors as they chased imaginary icons over hill and dale. It seems that the craze has faded with the warm weather, and many gamers have retreated indoors and back to lives consumed by isolating technology and a sedentary way of life.

Encouragingly there are organizations out there that are continually trying to combat this trend and entice the young outside again. One such group is Come Alive Outside who, together with landscape professionals and affiliated education institutions are working together to make this happen.

Last week, students from all academic levels gathered in Prince Edward County to take part in the Come Alive Outside 2016 Design Challenge, in partnership with Come Alive Outside, Landscape Ontario and Wentworth Landscapes and supported by the Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board, The HUB Child & Family Centre and the County.

The design professionals from Wentworth Landscapes joined forces with students from the Landscape Design and Landscape Management departments of both Seneca College and the Niagara Parks School of Horticulture, along with Prince Edward Collegiate Institute, Massassaga-Rednersville Elementary School and preschool children from The HUB to work on a special outdoor learning centre on the site of Massassaga-Rednersville School.

Divided into five groups, the students and professionals came up with ideas to develop the mostly unused school property into an area that will abide by the design criteria including: interaction with the space using all five senses; integrating the creative input of those who will use it; creating a Certified Wildlife Habitat; effectively managing and utilizing rainwater; and building the initial phase on a budget of $15,000.

The ideas ranged from attracting butterflies by planting milkweed to growing tomatoes and cucumbers to the more elaborate notions of incorporating zip lines, zebras and dinosaurs. All ideas were taken into account as the college students flushed out these plans into design presentations held on Saturday morning at the Regent Theatre in Picton.

Come Alive Outside is associated with four such projects currently in the works in Chicago, Denver, Rutland, Vermont and Picton. Wentworth Landscapes is the reason the County is involved in this year’s Design Challenge.

Ideas were flying during the crayon brainstorming session at Massassaga Rednersville Public School on Friday morning. (L-R): (facing camera) Seneca College student Nicole Greshuk, Richard Stetham, Junior Designer at Wentworth Landscape and Massassaga Rednersville Public School students including Grace (far right) contribute to the Design Challenge

“This event was important to our team for several reasons,” said Scott Wentworth, founder and president of Wentworth Landscapes. “A place of stewardship in our community for these issues connected with the Come Alive Outside movement. It’s our way of contributing our expertise and passion for creating the awareness, intention and opportunity for people to live healthier lives in our community. The issue of connecting kids with nature, getting them unplugging, and creating quality experiences for them in the outside world.”

Wentworth added, “It also shows what landscape professionals contribute. It’s not about just planting and lawn care, it’s impacting social change, encouraging everyone by living healthy outside.”

The college students have gone back to their schools to perfect their designs which will then be submitted to the Landscape Ontario board for judging in early December. Additionally the community will be able to view the designs and vote for favourites at the HUB Centre during the week of December 12.

Landscape Ontario is the primary funder of this project, committing $10,000 to the first phase.

The Design Challenge winning design will be announced at the Landscape Ontario Congress in Jan 2017 and will be constructed at Canada Blooms in March.

Wentworth Landscapes will begin phase one of construction in the HUB’s preschool area within Massassaga-Rednersville School in the spring/summer of 2017.