Monday, August 26, 2013

Social Science Sleuths Fall 2013 The Heart of the City: Learning about Urban Studies




Social Science Sleuths
Fall 2013
The Heart of the City:  Learning about Urban Studies 

This fall we will be learning about cities, particularly our city, Fort Wayne.  Each session we will take one aspect of urban studies and dig into it a little deeper.  You will be expected to do some work outside the time we spend together at the library.   Each time there will questions to answer.  If you type them up as you go, it will be pretty simple to put together your display for the last session.   There is a web page that has all of the information on it.  If you want to have your work saved on the web page, I’ll put it up for you.  This is the link to the page:  http://socialsciencesleuths.blogspot.com/

My email is:  knesiusroeger@acpl.info.  If you send your work as an attachment to an email it will be very easy to cut and paste in onto the blog.


Week 1
Intro to Urban Studies  
September         9

What is urban studies?
Urban studies is the attempt to understand cities and city life.  You can learn about cities by learning about their politics, economic and social relations, physical landscapes, and cultures.  Urban studies both focuses on cities as distinctive places and explores the meaning and function of cities in the larger society.

Cities are constantly built and rebuilt; from the initial settlement to the present, each layer leaves its own traces. A city has many districts—downtown, neighborhoods, suburbs; each with its own history, institutions, and successive populations.  Houses, schools businesses,  parks and plazas, alleys to boulevards, sewers to freeways all of these give clues to the environmental, social, and political context in which they were built and to the people who built them. 


This fall we’re going to use our city, Fort Wayne as our laboratory to learn about urban studies.

1.       Find your neighborhood on a Fort Wayne map. 




2.       Find a section of town that you like to go to.  What area is it and why do you like to go there?





3.       What do you know about downtown Fort Wayne? 




4.       What places to you visit there?






5.       Find pictures of some of these places.






6.       What ways can you get to downtown from where you live?






7.       Figure out how to get there without using a car.  (Hint Google map is good for this!)




Now for a little historical perspective:

History of Fort Wayne from the city’s website


Kekionga was first settled by the Miami and other Native Americans who used the confluence of the rivers as a place to meet from across the Great Lakes and Ohio River valley regions.   Using a modern Fort Wayne map you can find the roads that run on angles, leading to Fort Wayne from other settled areas around the Midwest.    Early American settlers used these same roads.

1.       Find at least three roads that run into Fort Wayne on an angle. 





2.       Where do you suppose the road might lead to?

3.       Find a picture online of the Old Fort.  Have you ever been there?



The current fort was recreated in the 1970s from the original plans on file in Washington DC at the Library of Congress.   It was rebuilt across from what is now Headwaters Park.  The original fort built by the Americans was on the corner of Clay and Berry streets in downtown.



The original street corner for the new town was laid out in what is now Freimann Square, next to the Arts United theater.     To give you an idea of the size of the town, what is now the Botanical Garden was way out in the country.  Eighty years later the Nebraska neighborhood, just west of downtown, got its name because it was so far west; it was like “Going to the state of Nebraska.”   You can look at this 1898 map to get an idea of how big Fort Wayne had grown in less than 100 years.

Fort Wayne map from 1898


In between those two times people had built the Wabash and Erie Canal with Fort Wayne as its highest point. (Hence the nickname Summit City.)  The canal had brought lots of settlers and had been used to forcibly move the remaining Miami people out of Indiana to Kansas.   The canal was replaced by the newly invented railroad and Fort Wayne became well known as a place where engines were built and repaired and many people changed trains between stations. (Including Abraham Lincoln once.)


Roads went from being mud to wooden (notice the name Lima Plank Road on that 1898 map) to being paved with bricks.  If you look when you are downtown or some of the nearby neighborhoods you can still find brick streets.


The reason for getting acquainted with this background is so you can pick out a smaller section of town to claim as your own for the next couple of months.  Get your camera ready so you can start taking pictures of the places in town you are claiming as your own.













Week 2

Selecting a Site to Learn About     September     23

We’ll take a little walking tour around the library’s neighborhood to get an idea of what you’ll need to do for the area you pick.

The site you choose should be someplace you can get to fairly regularly.  It should have enough information available that you can find out some interesting things.  It should also be somewhere that you can find evidence of what has been there before when you go walking around.  

You are not limited just to the older sections of Fort Wayne, though they are the areas of town where you will find far more information to work with.   One of the sources you will have available to you is a book called the Fort Wayne, Indiana interim report: a presentation of historic resources, achievements and possibilities.  It has some basic history of many of the older houses all around Fort Wayne.  It can be a little challenging to use at first but it is a really interesting way to know what you are looking at in older neighborhoods.

The site you select should not be more than two or three blocks.  It needs to be small enough that you can easily walk around it and take pictures of the things you find.   You will look for buildings that are there now and evidence of what used to be there.  You will look for the things that people leave behind, both current and historical. 
TAKE PICTURES!



You will look for clues as to what the land might have looked like before it was built on.  (Hint: Are there any big old trees or rocks?)


Once you have your site picked out, you will need to go visit and take pictures of the buildings that are there.  Look at the ground too. 



What are the streets and sidewalks paved with?




 Can you find markings in the cement to tell you who put down the sidewalk and when?




 Is there anything painted on the side of old brick buildings? 




Does the building have a name carved into it?




 Is there graffiti anywhere?




What are the windows in the buildings like? 




Are they covered with screens or mesh? 




Are they bricked over or boarded up? 




 What do the roofs of the buildings look like – are they flat or peaked?





 What else can you tell about the buildings?

 



 What do you think they are used for?





 Do you think they always had the same use?




What about the places people live? 





Do they look like houses for one family or for several families?

 



Do you think the house started out one way and was changed?





 Look for mailboxes or house numbers to help you make your determination.






 How old do you suppose the buildings are?







Using City Directories can help you figure out what was going on in the city during different years.  The Genealogy department at the Main library has a collection of all of them.  You can find some of the earlier ones online at this web address:
Online access to early city directories.

People are listed by their last names, then first names, then address and then job.



This map of Fort Wayne is from 1907.  It shows the major businesses, schools and other local landmarks with numbers on the map and names around the edges.

Fort Wayne map from 1898


BRING YOUR PICTURES OCTOBER 14TH!






































Week 3  
October 14   Site Selection reporting

We’ll use the questions you answered from last week’s page for this week’s discussion.  Bring them with you and bring your pictures!


What is your site and what can you find there?

What kinds of things have discovered about your site?  We’ll talk about the questions you answered and more questions that you may have now that you’ve been there.




Getting ready for next time:  
Exploring nature in the city.

 Now that you’ve started to get acquainted with your area, let’s look at what kind of natural elements are in it.  Natural elements include plants, wildlife and whether or not there is a microclimate in your area.  A microclimate is a very small area that may be always shaded because of how a building is angled on the land; or it might get extra warmth because of reflections from windows; or often be wet because of how a building drains.  Don’t get too concerned about looking for microclimates; they are just something extra to know about.


As you look for plants notice what kinds of plants are growing:


Trees?


Grass?



Bushes/shrubs?



Flower pots?


Gardens?



What things look like they were planted purposely by people?





What things look like they might be naturally occurring?




Where are these plants?  Are they next to buildings?  Next to the street?  In a big open area?
Take pictures of what you see.




What kinds of animals can you find in your area?

Birds?



Squirrels?


Pets?


Evidence that someone has walked a dog recently?


Other kinds of animals?



Can you find other ways nature has shaped your area?







TAKE PICTURES!

Week 4
 October  28        The Natural City:  What kinds of natural areas are in the city

BRING YOUR PICTURES

What kinds of things have discovered about the natural world at your site?  We’ll talk about the questions you answered and more questions that you may have now that you’ve been there.


Getting ready for next time:

The Built City:  features considered are parks, cemeteries, suburbs, zoos, skyscrapers, department stores, supermarkets, and amusement parks.

These are all things that people build.  They are ways we change our environment to be useful, or to entertain us, or to make our economy work, or say something about our city and ourselves. 

Fort Wayne does have all these things (or has had them) and they help us know about the people who live in a certain city.   What time frames were these things built in?  What were they like when they were new?  What are they like now? 



             Here’s an example about Robison Park, an amusement park that once existed on the north side of Fort Wayne:

             http://www.archive.org/stream/robisonpark1896100bate/robisonpark1896100bate_djvu.txt

             http://www.huntertownhistoricalsoc.org/Forest_McComb_Articles/robison_park.htm

             http://www.fortwaynereader.com/story.php?uid=1438

             http://newsplusnotes.blogspot.com/2010/06/blast-from-past-robison-parks-blue.html

             http://audreyvallette2.webs.com/places.htm

             http://www.cardcow.com/59883/pavilion-walk-robinson-park-fort-wayne-indiana/

If you go the area now, all you will see with the Robison Park name is an electrical substation on Clinton St near I-469. But if you had gone 100 years ago you would have found the Cedar Point of Fort Wayne!

Pick two of these things and go visit examples of them. Look online for information about what they were like in earlier times.  These places don’t necessarily have to be in the same area you’ve been looking at.


Categories to choose from:

             parks
             cemeteries
             suburbs
             zoos
             skyscrapers
             department stores
             supermarkets
             apartments

When you have chosen your two categories go visit at least one example of each kind.  If you have the time it would be better to visit two of each thing so you can compare them to each other.


First place you picked:_____________________________________________

Where is you place? 


What is around it?


Can you find a date of when it was built?


Who is at this place?  Describe some of the people you see there.


If you visited at a different time of day do you think you would see a different variety of people?



Why do you suppose people go visit this place?  Name several reasons.



Second place you picked:_____________________________________________




Where is you place? 



What is around it?



Can you find a date of when it was built?



Who is at this place?  Describe some of the people you see there.



If you visited at a different time of day do you think you would see a different variety of people?




Why do you suppose people go visit this place?  Name several reasons.
































Week 5   
November    11     
The Built City:  features considered are parks, cemeteries, suburbs, zoos, skyscrapers, department stores, supermarkets, and amusement parks.

We’ll share our findings on these.   Remember to-      
BRING YOUR PICTURES!



Getting ready for next time-

The Cultural City:  What kinds of music, art, sports, education, entertainment, religion, media outlets, food, languages, and transportation can you find in the city?

Culture is a broad concept used in anthropology (another social science) to describe the characteristics that hold a group of people together.  You can talk about lots of categories that are part of culture.  Here are some of them as found on a page on Texas A&M’s website 

CULTURE -SOME DEFINITIONS

·         experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions   
·         Culture is the systems of knowledge shared by a relatively large group of people.
·         Culture is communication, communication is culture.
·         behavior through social learning.
·         A culture is a way of life of a group of people--the behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept, generally without thinking about them, and that are passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next.   
                                                                                (http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/choudhury/culture.html)
Here are some cultural categories.  Using four of these answer the questions and share what you find out for our next session.  You can bring pictures or things to show what you found.

1.       Sports  (local or regional teams that people follow)

2.       Beliefs  (includes religion and faith practices)

3.       Media outlets (where do people get their news)

4.       Spatial relationships  (how close do people stand to each other, does it matter who the person is)

5.       Music  (what do you hear on the radio, what kinds of music can you can hear performed live)

6.       What kinds of visual art is around?  Where do you see it?

7.       What kinds of food do people eat?  Where can you go to eat this way?

8.       What languages can you hear spoken?  On the radio?  In person?  Can you worship in other languages?  Can you conduct business in another language? 

9.       How do people dress?  Do you see different styles of dress in the city depending on where you are or who is wearing the clothes?

10. How do people travel?  Can you see people using multiple ways to get around?  What do you see most often?

11.   A category you want to investigate for yourself that isn’t listed here._____________________________



































Week 6 
 November  18    The Cultural City:  What kinds of music, art, sports, education, and entertainment can you find in the city?


Bring in what you discovered from the four categories you picked last time about culture in Fort Wayne.  You may have photos, objects or other things to show what you discovered.



Getting ready for next time:

December  2      The Human City: Stories about people who live in cities over time.  Look for                                     examples of things you’ve learned about in the stories.   

         This is where you get to find something to read.  It can be fiction or non-fiction; print book or e-book.  It can be a novel or picture book.   The point isn’t to show how many pages you can polish off, but to get yourself involved in a story (true or made up) that takes place in a city (any city) and see what you can find out about what it would be like to live there.  You’ve learned a lot about cities by now. 
As you read the story keep an eye out for things that indicate how the characters in the story live.

1.       When is the story taking place?  (Now, a hundred years ago, sometime in the future, etc.)





2.       Where do they live? 





3.       How do they travel? 





4.       What kinds of natural areas are around?





5.       What types of businesses are mentioned?





6.       What kinds of sensory things would you encounter? (Smells, sounds, sights, tastes, touch)







7.       What do people do for entertainment?





8.       How do people in the story communicate?




Here are some suggestions of books that are set in cities:


The Great Migration by Jacob Lawrence

The Little House by Virginia Lee Brown

Underground by David Macaulay

A Street Through Time by Steve Noon

Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold

Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman

The Ancient City,  Life in Classical Athens and Rome by Peter Connolly

Factory Girl by Barbara Greenwood

City, a Story of Roman Planning and Construction by David Macaulay

Seraphina: a novel, by Rachel Hartman.

Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (the scenes set in the Capital)


Week 7          
December  2  
The Human City:   Stories about people who live in cities over time.  Look for examples of things you’ve learned about in the stories.  


You’ve spent the last few months getting to know your particular patch of Fort Wayne.  You’ve read a book set in a city.  

What did you see in the story you read that you also saw in the part of Fort Wayne you’ve been getting acquainted with?


Sharing what you’ve discovered is the agenda for today!


Getting ready for next time.

December 16th is our last session.  It is when you  present your whole package.

Display Time!

Your display can be in electronic form or on a poster board, but put together something that shows where your area is, what you've learned about it. 

 Is it still an area of town you like to visit?  What kinds of things have you begun to notice that you may not have paid attention to before? 

Be prepared to talk confidently about what you know now about Fort Wayne!  Include information from all the weeks of class. 

You can use the outline on the next page to help you put together your display.





Week 8 
 December 16  Display Week

If you’ve decided to have your work posted on the blog here is a sample page to give you an outline.  Type it up in Word or some other word processing program.  Email it to Karen (knesiusroeger@acpl.info) as an attachment and I’ll post it on the blog.


Here is what your page should look like when it is finished.





Name of your neighborhood or intersection you are studying

 Site Selection


Show a map (you can use a Google map) of your area.

Show pictures of some buildings or other interesting things in your area and label them.

Tell a little bit about what you've picked and why.

The Natural City

Show pictures of the kinds of animals, plants and other natural items you found in your area and label them.

Write about what you find using the questions you answered.


The Built City

(The places you pick for this section may not necessarily be in the section of town you picked to study closely earlier.)

Show pictures of the built objects you picked and label them.

Using the places you compared, write about them using the questions you answered.


The Cultural City

What four categories did you pick?  Use any pictures you may have taken, and the answers you found to write about this.


The Human City in Story

What book did you pick?  List the title and the author.  If you have a picture of the cover, include that.

Write about the story by answering the questions.  Add anything else you'd like to about the story.










Sample page for the blog

Here is what your page should look like when it is finished.


Name of your neighborhood or intersection you are studying

 Site Selection


Show a map (you can use a Google map) of your area.

Show pictures of some buildings or other interesting things in your area and label them.

Tell a little bit about what you've picked and why.

The Natural City

Show pictures of the kinds of animals, plants and other natural items you found in your area and label them.

Write about what you find using the questions you answered.


The Built City

(The places you pick for this section may not necessarily be in the section of town you picked to study closely earlier.)

Show pictures of  the built objects you picked and label them.

Using the places you compared, write about them using the questions you answered.


The Cultural City

What four categories did you pick?  Use any pictures you may have taken, and the answers you found to write about this.


The Human City in Story

What book did you pick?  List the title and the author.  If you have a picture of the cover, include that.

Write about the story by answering the questions.  Add anything else you'd like to about the story.


Display Time!

Your display can be in electronic form or on a poster board, but put together something that shows where your area is, what you've learned about it.  Is it still an area of town you like to visit?  What kinds of things have you begun to notice that you may not have paid attention to before?




Friday, August 23, 2013

November 18 The Cultural City: What kinds of music, art, sports, education, entertainment can you find in the city



                                Fall 2013
     The Heart of the City:  Learning about Urban Studies
Social Science Sleuths

November  18    The Cultural City:  What kinds of music, art, sports, education, entertainment can you find in the city?


Bring in what you discovered from the four categories you picked last time about culture in Fort Wayne.  You may have photos,  objects or other things to show what you discovered.



Getting ready for next time:

December  2  The Human City: Stories about people who live in cities over time.  Look for examples of things you’ve learned about in the stories.   

         This is where you get to find something to read.  It can be fiction or non-fiction; print book or e-book.  It can be a novel or picture book.   The point isn’t to show how many pages you can polish off, but to get yourself involved in a story (true or made up) that takes place in a city (any city) and see what you can find out about what it would be like to live there.  You’ve learned a lot about cities by now. 
As you read the story keep an eye out for things that indicate how the characters in the story live.

1.       When is the story taking place?  (Now, a hundred years ago, sometime in the future, etc)





2.       Where do they live? 





3.       How do they travel? 





4.       What kinds of natural areas are around?





5.       What types of businesses are mentioned?





6.       What kinds of sensory things would you encounter? (Smells, sounds, sights, tastes, touch)







7.       What do people do for entertainment?





8.       How do people in the story communicate?




Here are some suggestions of books that are set in cities:


The Great Migration  by Jacob Lawrence

The Little House by Virginia Lee Brown

Underground by David Macaulay

A Street Through Time by Steve Noon

Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold

Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman

The Ancient City,  Life in Classical Athens and Rome by Peter Connolly

Factory Girl by Barbara Greenwood

City, a Story of Roman Planning and Construction by David Macaulay

Seraphina : a novel,  by  Rachel Hartman.

Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (the scenes set in the Capital)