Camp Challenge - ALTA Head Start
About this project:
ALTA Head Start's Camp Challenge campus is located next to Mill Creek Park in Youngstown, Ohio. This campus is the former home of "Fresh Air Camp," which for many years served the health and emotional needs of the children of immigrants who flocked to the Mahoning Valley to find work in the steel mills. While doing research for Phase 1 of this project, we visited Mill Creek Park and happened upon a discarded and well worn gear heart from an old water wheel. The gear heart became the inspiration for the three major elements in the PreK outdoor classroom. The elements are meant to resemble the parts of an old water wheel, discarded and partially buried in the landscape - the gear heart, the water trough, and the wheel itself.
In the center of a decomposed granite bike path, children are able to climb on several gear hearts and their spokes, all of varying heights, challenging them physically and enhancing their connection to the rich history around them. The raised bed is meant to resemble part of a raised trough of water that powers the water wheel. It features beds of two heights for butterfly-attracting plantings and a hidden hatch for garden tools. The water wheel bench is the central feature for group instruction, with space for twelve Pre-K students. A teacher sized seating boulder, a tumble hill for additional cozy seating (and rolling), and a new shade tree complete this natural classroom space.
