Resilient by Design has partnered with Y-Plan through the UC Berkeley’s Center for Cities+Schools (CC+S) to engage youth in creative problem solving around these issues, working alongside the design teams.
CC+S built on their recent Y-Plan resilience work and developed an aligned youth resilient challenge that engaged over 800 Bay Area elementary and high school students in planning and designing a resilient future for their own communities.
What is the Youth Challenge?
CC+S built on their existing school district and education networks across the Bay Area to create the “Y-PLAN Resilient by Design Youth Challenge.” Using the nationally recognized Y-PLAN methodology, young people engaged 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.
Y-Plan Accomplishments & Contributions
Resilient by Design (RbD) partnered with Y-PLAN through the UC Berkeley's CC+S to engage elementary and high school youth in tackling climate change challenges by:
- Working with over 15 Bay Area high school classrooms
- Inviting selected RbD teams to serve as “Adult Allies” to Y-PLAN student teams to provide local expertise and guidance to student teams and serve as role models and sources of inspiration for future college and career readiness for the young resilience planners
- Providing UC Berkeley student mentorship to the high school teams
- Creating over 15 classroom based, and youth led, resilience design proposals
- Exposing young people to learn more about future careers in the resilience field and college pathways required
- Sharing the insights across the region through digital storytelling, website development, quarterly e-newsletter, and video documentation
Y-Plan’s Continuing Engagement in Regional Planning
CC+S and Y-Plan will be partnering with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) in ongoing regional planning efforts that look to solve issues Bay Area communities face related to poor air quality, climate change impacts, housing affordability and displacement and mobility and access challenges.