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City of Seneca
Junior Planner Certification Program
Why Junior Citizen Planner?
The Junior Citizen Planner program is designed to promote youth participation in city planning.
Target Audience, Skills and Curriculum
Junior Citizen Planner targets youth in the classroom, after-school programming, day and summer camp programs, Scouts, Campfire, and other youth programs. However, curriculum may be adapted for independent use.
The program develops participant's skills in becoming good citizens, responsible decision-makers, and community pride. The primary subject areas covered in the program are: Social Studies, Civics, and Community; Geography; Environmental Science; and Land Use Planning.
Junior Citizen Planner Certificates
The Junior Citizen Planner Certificate of Completion recognizes youth who have earned a level of competency and expertise about planning issues. Earning the JCP certificate is a great thing for youth to list on award and scholarship applications.
Earning the Junior Citizen Planner Certificate of Completion is optional. It is possible to use the materials and not earn a certificate.
In order to provide participants with the well-rounded skills to become effective planning decision-makers and citizens, certificate requirements are to complete one of each category:
1. I Love My Community!
1.1 Land Uses - There Are So Many!
Students put together zoning pieces on a puzzle board to design a smooth running community. They then list land uses on sticky notes and categories them into each of the zones, competing in a contest to see who can put the most types of uses on their community puzzle board.(click here for complete lesson/activity)
1.2 Map It: How Well Do You Know Your Neighborhood?
Students draw a map from memory when they imagine that they are flying in a helicopter and looking down on their neighborhood.(click here for complete lesson/activity)
1.3 City Planning is Colorful
On a local map, students use city planner colors and follow a legend to color land use zones. They understand that proper zoning colors are used to identify different land uses (zones) in their community. (click here for complete lesson/activity)
1.4 Walking Neighborhood Surveys
Groups of students engage in a neighborhood walk, surveying community land use, natural features, traffic and streets, architecture and historic resources, and diversity and culture. The students report their findings. (click here for complete section overview)
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Survey: Land Use (click here for complete lesson/activity)
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Survey: Natural Resources (click here for complete lesson/activity)
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Survey: Traffic and Streets (click here for complete lesson/activity)
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Survey: Architecture and Historic Resources (click here for complete lesson/activity)
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Survey: Diversity and Culture (click here for complete lesson/activity)
1.5 My School and Other Community Services — Where and Why?
Why is my elementary school here? Where is the fire station? The locations of such services are often planned to provide convenient access for the entire community. By using local examples, students explore reasons why civic facilities are located where they are in their community.(click here for complete lesson/activity)
1.6 Neighborhood Improvements — A Class Project to be Proud Of
For this class project, students begin by establishing neighborhood improvement goals. In small groups, they role-play city planners and design neighborhood improvements. As a class, students build a largescale improvement model, and then present it to various groups. Finally, students help to accomplish a neighborhood improvement goal, gaining a sense of community pride.(click here for complete lesson/activity)
2. Geography All Around Me
2.1. Seneca Map Road Trip
Working in pairs, students use a Seneca road map to fill in blanks while taking an imaginary road trip. They locate and identify characteristics of places, cultures, and settlements.
2.2. Here’s Looking at Your Place: A Community Profile Exchange
Students explore their own community and create a community profile that they exchange with students of other Oconee County communities. Students gather information for and write letters to an exchange classroom.
2.3 My Neighborhood, How Has It Changed?
Students examine aerial photographs of their neighborhood and compare two photographs of the same area, taken at least 10 years apart. They will locate and identify changes that have taken place in the area and then write compare and contrast statements.
2.4 Farmland Development
Students graph and interpret trends in farmland and population data. They also plot land use scenarios and evaluate the pros and cons of developing farmland.
2.5 Landmarks, “I See One!”
Students learn to identify community, state, and national landmarks. They will use a decision making model to choose one landmark to promote or preserve as a national or state recognized landmark.
3. WOW! The Environment Is Important
3.1 A Slice of Planet Earth
By observing (or performing) the slicing of an apple, students become aware of the small fraction of the Earth’s limited land resources that support all human life.
3.2 Food Web Forest Munchers
Students will use body movement, pantomime, and food tokens to simulate the feeding motions of forest and open land organisms and identify their interconnectedness in a food web.
3.3 Shrinking Habitat
Students simulate a process of land development by acting as vegetation, herbivores, carnivores, and land developers. Through physical activity, they will identify organisms as part of a food chain, recognize the importance of suitable habitat for wildlife, and understand and describe some effects of land development on plants and animals.
3.4 Green Space Metaphors
Students will develop an appreciation for and an understanding of green spaces through the power of “hands-on” metaphors, linking the characteristics and natural functions of green spaces to the familiar realm of everyday life.
3.5 Character Education and Responsible Land Use
In this three-part lesson, students read stories about model citizens who worked to beautify the environment. The students then develop their own land use code of ethics from discussion cards and work on a real land use dispute. Lastly, students track their success in living responsibly on a “Good Citizen” chart.
4. It’s Fun to Be Involved!
4.1 Dragonfly Pond
Students create a collage (design a plan) of human land use activities around an image of a pond. They evaluate the effects of different kinds of land use on wetland habitats, and discuss and evaluate lifestyle changes to minimize damaging effects on habitats.
4.2. Landopoly: A Decision-Making Game
Students play a board game to develop their land use decision-making skills. Through the various choices posed in the game, students are asked to consider both economic and environmental well-being in making land use decisions.
4.3. Hear Ye! Hear Ye!
Students conduct a mock public hearing to make a group decision on a land use development project. They learn that every voice gets heard and that individual citizens can make a difference.
4.4. Follow The Action: An Issue Investigation
In this issue investigation project, students practice citizenship when they identify, follow, analyze, evaluate and lobby for or against pending action affecting a land use issue.
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