Education

Cultural Landscapes as Classrooms

This year brought the near completion of our second Cultural Landscapes as Classrooms (CLC) module, City Shaping: The Olmsteds & Louisville, which will be available shortly both on-line and in CD-Rom form. The Creative Team for the CLC project gave their first national presentation of the first two CLC modules at the National Trust for Historic Preservation Annual Meeting this fall in Louisville, KY. The Creative Team presentation panel also included Susan Rademacher, Director, Louisville Olmsted Parks Conservancy.

TCLF began work on a new phase of our third CLC module, Modern Garden Icons ( MGI ), a project that will make America's two preeminent private gardens "virtually" accessible. MGI features the Miller Garden, Columbus, IN, designed by Dan Kiley, and the Donnell Garden, Sonoma, CA, designed by Thomas Church. TCLF received major grants from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources; The Heritage Fund of Columbus, Indiana; and the National Endowment for the Arts, Design Arts; all in support of the Modern Garden Icons CLC.

CLC Evaluation Project

The TCLF Education Committee has engaged an independent educational analyst to assess the Columbus Park CLC. The results will evaluate strengths and weaknesses of the CLC, help guide the development and assessment of future CLC modules, and will develop concrete data that will assist TCLF in seeking future CLC funding. The evaluation work conducted over the two phases outlined below, will be completed in 2005.

Part One  includes preliminary research on how the CLC project aligns with national educational standards. This research will aid in determining the most effective educational use, as well as marketing and distribution strategies, of the CLC project.

Part Two  focuses on the main target audiences for CLC - teachers and middle school students. This part will be comprised of interviews with teachers, as well as observations and interviews with students who have used the Columbus Park CLC. The Columbus Park unit will be evaluated in order to determine if it has achieved its goals and objectives, assess its strengths and weaknesses, and evaluate whether or not changes should be made in future units to enhance the overall project experience. To evaluate in-class use, students will be observed using the CD-ROM to examine how they move through the program. Both students and teachers will be interviewed either individually or in focus groups to give them the opportunity to talk about their impressions of this CLC unit, any questions or comments they have about the navigation and content as well as recommendations for future units (especially regarding its "curricular fit" and vocabulary). Teachers will additionally be asked about how the Columbus Park CLC might fit into their local educational standards as well as ways that would encourage them to use CLC in their classrooms, including the usefulness of the lesson plan in the "Teaching with Historic Places" website. This portion of the assessment also will determine the various ways that teachers might use the Columbus Park CLC addition to its integration into coursework or use as a special study unit.

Landslide: Working Landscapes

Under the leadership of Margi Carpenter, Project Coordinator for Landslide, TCLF launched our second online Landslide list on October 1 st - this time with a focus on "Working Landscapes." The striking website design and the promotional postcard were produced by Oviatt Media. Six articles were published about Landslide between October and December, including a major feature article in The Washington Post dedicated to the Buckland landscape. Another story is due out in January in Preservation magazine about the California 's Ridgewood Ranch. These press clippings as well as other recent examples of TCLF in the news can all be found on the website.

Website

In the past nine months, the TCLF website has received over 765,000 visits-that makes almost 3,000 visits per day, with over 14 hits per visitor during each visit! The web statistics confirm the capabilities of our primary medium for communicating our educational initiatives, ideas, and activities. Other web offerings include updates on the current status of 2002 Landslide sites, the on-line 2003 Annual Report, new features (the Kiley landscape threatened at Lincoln Center by Ken Smith, a Pioneer Query site, and more) and ordering information for our CLCs and publications.

Landscape Legends: Documenting Landscape Architecture in America

Filming and Production  The TCLF oral history initiative, Landscape Legends: Documenting Landscape Architecture in America, continued in 2004 with the documentation of Rich Haag, filmed over the course of several days this fall at his home, and at Gas Works Park, Seattle. Over the past three years, the TCLF has made a commitment to capturing pioneers of the landscape architecture profession on video with the goal of making them available on-line. TCLF has amassed an impressive collection of rich footage. To date, we have filmed Lawrence Halprin, and Ted Osmundson. We have also video documented Dan Kiley (at his home in Charlotte, VT ), Grady Clay (at his home in Louisville, KY ), and scholar Dr. Charles Beveridge, at the Olmsted office and home, Fairstead. Richard Haag joins this group of luminaries in our video library, which we are preparing for a national audience. Special thanks go to Larry Fox and the SWA Group who have donated their time and resources, and to TCLF Board member, Kalvin Platt, who has made this all possible.

Auction  As a part of our Landscape Legends on-line archive initiative, TCLF has begun preliminary planning with American Society of Landscape Architects to hold an auction of drawings, prints, and ephemera in conjunction with the annual ASLA meeting in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida in October of 2005. At the ASLA Meeting, TCLF will host an extraordinary silent auction to benefit the development of the on-line archive. The landscape architecture community has responded with great support and enthusiasm. TCLF has received works for the auction from M. Paul Friedberg, Lawrence Halprin, Grant and Ilze Jones, Laurie Olin, Bill Roberts, Ken Smith, Michael Van Valkenburgh, Pete Walker, James Van Sweden, Richard Haag, Alan Ward, Alex MacLean, Chris Faust, James Sheldon, and Cheryl Barton.