Citizen Schools

Kathryn Nash has contacted us about possible involvement with Citizen Schools, please read below. Ian will be contacting her via phone as well and will update everyone soon.

Hello,

I am hoping you might be able to help me. It has been years since I reached out to AIA for volunteer architects to participate in the Citizen Schools program. Through the committee that provides community service opportunities we recruited a few architects who taught apprenticeships at our sites.

First a brief mention about Citizen Schools. Citizen Schools is a national non-profit that partners with middle schools to expand the learning day.
The signature piece of CS is the apprenticeship. At the heart of this program is the belief that adults from all backgrounds can contribute to the growth and learning of young people. Each apprenticeship is an 11-week, hands-on course that introduces students to a new field and in which they create a high-quality product, service, or presentation. That’s where the need for architects comes in.

I see that you have a wonderful competition in the Sandcastle project. I would like to recruit architects to team up and teach an apprenticeship to introduce some basic architectural design and structure skills. I think it would be to use a sand building as the basis for this apprenticeship. Maybe you can help in a couple of different ways. Provide an opportunity to present to a committee, reach out via email publications, or send a note to participants in last year’s contest participants. That of course is just one idea as we have urban design, 3D Sketch Up and tons of other interesting topics for an architecture apprenticeship. I need the volunteers to really develop this important sector.

Here’s a great, short video (5 min) about our program:

http://www.edutopia.org/citizen-schools-after-school-program-video

Would you some time that we might talk further about this involvement and how to best secure volunteers? Let me know your availability and I look forward to hearing from you.

My best,

Kathryn

Kathryn Nash
Director of Civic Engagement, Texas
Citizen Schools
2503 Robinhood
Houston, Texas 77005
cell 832.692.3402
off 713.529.4006
fax 713.529.4008