Kindergartners at the university’s Center for Young Children (CYC) will not be getting the working rocket or four-story playhouse they pictured for their playground renovation.
But this spring, they could see a new outdoor stage, native-grass maze, hillside slide and weather station as part of a project spearheaded by Steven Cohan, coordinator of the Landscape Management Program in the plant science and landscape architecture department.
Inspired by the nonprofit Come Alive Outside, which encourages people to spend more time outdoors, Cohan approached CYC Director Fran Favretto asking if she’d like to team up to reinvent its 20-year-old playground.
“CYC has an ideal setup to diversify kids’ activities and also provide resources to bring into the classroom,” he says.
Nestled between Oakland Hall and the Aquatic Center, CYC has a fenced L-shaped playground with two small play sets, teepees, tire swings and sandboxes for the 110 children ages 3 to 6—mostly UMD employees’ offspring—enrolled there.
Small landscaped areas and flowerbeds were installed when the building opened, but Favretto says her busy staff doesn’t have time to maintain them. Cohan’s offer for his students to recreate and tend them and add a much-wanted vegetable garden was a happy surprise.
But what most excited Favretto is that Cohan and his students are incorporating the ideas they culled from the teachers and kindergartners. Click here to read the rest of the article on Terp online.
