Landmarks Joins Creative Learning Center Students in “Preserving St. Louis Architecture”
December 20, 2007
Parents and students examine building materials. |
On the evening of Wednesday, December 19, fifth-grade students at the Center for Creative Learning (CCL) in Ellisville presented projects related to their semester-long study of "Preserving St. Louis Architecture." For many years, Landmarks has participated in the architecture and historic preservation program at CCL through our What Are Buildings Made Of? (WABMO) program. In fact, CCL has adopted Landmarks as one of the non-profits in its charitable giving program. In recent years, we worked with Tammy Turner's fourth grade classes; Tammy now works in another school district. This year was our first working with Pamela Hausfather's fifth graders. Pamela jumped into the program with an open mind and enthusiasm, and succeeded in getting her students excited about our heritage.
A parent looks through Landmarks' St. Louis Landmarks and Historic Districts. |
Through WABMO, the students watch a slideshow on historic building materials in the classroom. Then they come downtown to the Old Courthouse, where Landmarks' staff and docents provide a hands-on presentation of building materials and a 90-minute walking tour of downtown. WABMO offers students a primer on historic architecture that they expanded back at CCL.
Students formed groups that adopted endangered buildings from Landmarks' Eleven Most Endangered Buildings List and others, including the James Clemens, Jr. House, the Mullanphy Emigrant Home and the Sun Theater. The groups researched the buildings, came up with ideas for adaptive reuse, used computer aided drafting to devise basic floor plans and drafted letters to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay promoting the reuse of the buildings. The groups created booklets on their buildings as well as colorful ceramic models. Alongside this work, the students studied world architecture and architectural styles.
Students' ceramic building models. |
At the presentation, students proudly showed off their booklets and models as well as their interactive computer programs and games based on St. Louis architecture. Landmarks' staff provided a table displaying historic building material samples as well as literature (free and for sale) on local architecture. Students and their families joined their teacher and Landmarks to celebrate a semester of study of our built heritage.