What if children could design their own playgrounds? At Fall Creek Elementary School in Ithaca, this idea is coming to life through a community-engaged learning initiative led by Janet Loebach, the Evalyn Edwards Milman Professor in Child Development in the College of Human Ecology. The project unites students, designers and educators across generations to reimagine a play space that fosters creativity, inclusion and active play. In recognition of her work, Loebach has received this year’s George D. Levy Engaged Teaching and Research Award.

Administered by the Einhorn Center, the award honors projects that set the standard for outstanding and sustained community-engaged learning in the classroom or through research.

Loebach’s collaboration with Fall Creek Elementary began in 2023 when the Ithaca City School District (ICSD) sought her expertise in play space design and community-engaged research to support visioning activities for a portion of their schoolyard that needed to be renovated. Part of the 2021–22 Engaged Faculty Fellow cohort, she has a strong track record in this area, including teaching a course on Designing Age-Friendly Environments (DAFE) that immerses students in hands-on community projects with local youth and older adults. Collaborations with such partners as the Tompkins County Office for the Aging and the Ithaca Downtown Business Alliance have frequently led to tangible outcomes such as a new Age-Friendly Business certification program launching this spring.

At Fall Creek — which serves around 250 children — ICSD plans to replace a large, community-built wooden play structure that has become unsafe with age. During the first phase of the project, five Cornell undergraduate and graduate students joined Loebach in working closely with Fall Creek’s fifth graders to co-design a play space reflecting the children’s insights and interests. The team introduced the elementary schoolers to outdoor and nature play concepts, guided them through site assessments, conducted interviews with other students and staff and gathered input on students’ favorite activities, design ideas and priorities. The Cornell team then worked with teams of fifth graders who collaborated to develop their own design plans for the renovated play space. Finally, the students presented their ideas and priorities to school and ICSD leadership as well as the project architects.

“Children are the best sources for shaping the design of their own play spaces but we rarely give them the opportunity to contribute to planning and decision-making,” Loebach said. “This student-engaged project not only allowed them to directly influence the renovation of their school yard, they demonstrated that, with the right tools and guidance, children are capable, innovative designers.”

The Cornell team synthesized the ideas of the students and presented the resulting design brief to ICSD and TetraTech Architects & Engineers, the firm overseeing the renovation. Complex structures, thrilling play features, spaces for organized games and swings were high on the children’s wish list. The student designers also dispelled the notion that they were only looking for active play spaces. Every student design team highlighted the wish for quiet, calm spaces and gardens as well. “We would love to have a sensory garden that is active,” one team said about its vision for the school yard. “We want our playground to have a lot of balance of different things.”

The adults receiving the presentations were impressed. “In our professional lives we can identify meetings where we leave energized and inspired by colleagues — and this is the case with any meeting I have had with Dr. Loebach,” said Mary Grover, ICSD’s assistant superintendent for teaching and learning. “To see the inspiring conversation transform into action steps is a true gift.”

To document and streamline the process of engaging young people in collective design decision-making, Loebach and her team also produced a Co-Design Playbook, now in circulation among schools and design professionals. It recently guided students in her spring 2024 DAFE course as they helped fourth graders envision a new schoolyard at Beverly J. Martin, another Ithaca elementary school.

The process of actively helping to design their play space has also made a lasting impression on students and the school communities. “This will certainly be one of the experiences that students remember and draw inspiration from throughout their school careers,” said Caitlin Bram, principal of Fall Creek Elementary. “Our young people saw themselves in this process, invested their brilliance and energy and collaborated with each other and experts in the field. They presented to multiple groups of stakeholders, wowing the crowd every time. We are forever grateful.”

With the $5,000 Levy Award, Loebach aims to expand these efforts and lay the groundwork for a larger initiative. “We’re planning to turn this proof of concept into an ambitious proposal to the LEGO Foundation’s Playful Schools granting program,” she explained. Her team is designing a five-year study to assess how schoolyard renovations impact student play, learning and well-being as well as the benefits of involving students in the design process.

Established in 2013 by Karen Levy in memory of her late husband, George D. Levy, MBA ’54, the Levy grant has been supporting impactful community-engaged learning for over a decade. This year marks its tenth and final presentation.

Past recipients are:

• 2024: J. Nathan Matias, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
• 2022: Mildred Warner, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, College of Architecture, Art and Planning
• 2021: Joseph Margulies ‘82, Cornell Law School
• 2020: Kate Bronfenbrenner, School of Industrial and Labor Relations
• 2019: Jeanne Mosley, College of Human Ecology
• 2018: Robin Radcliffe, College of Veterinary Medicine
• 2017: Monroe Weber-Shirk, Cornell Engineering
• 2016: Paula Horrigan, College of Architecture, Art and Planning
• 2015: Mary Jo Dudley, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences