Now the system is closer to being showcased to schoolchildren across the country.

Yesterday, a creative team wrapped up its first installment of filming for ''The Olmsted Landscape Designs of Louisville: Parks, Parkways, Subdivisions and Estates, 1891-1928.''

The team is producing an educational CD-ROM for fourth through ninth-graders.

The yearlong project is the result of a partnership between the Cultural Landscape Foundation, based in Washington, D.C., and Louisville's Olmsted Park Conservancy. Ongoing fund raising has gained support for the $150,000-$200,000 project from several sources, including McClureRudd Joint Ventures, the LG&E Energy Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. A fund-raiser held in June boosted the total received to $100,000.

''We hit the ground running,'' foundation President Charles Birnbaum said. He added that the crew, which consists of himself and James Sheldon and Shirley Veenema of Real Art Media, also interviewed park users. The people they talked to included participants at a family reunion Sunday in Chickasaw Park and comments from local urban-design writer Grady Clay.

''We're as much interested in the ongoing social and cultural history,'' Birnbaum said. ''This isn't about looking at Olmsted in a vacuum. We want to wed together nature and culture.''

Among those interviewed were Shawnee residents Kim Reed and Olivia Mahoney. After being filmed using Chickasaw Park's exercise path, they shared their memories of the park.

''I think it's really nice that they're doing this,'' Reed said. ''It lets people know that this can be a good place to relax and bring your family.''

''And,'' Mahoney added, it ''reminds people that it's here.''

Olmsted is recognized as the founder of American landscape architecture and the nation's foremost park designer. Among his projects were New York City's Central Park, the grounds of the U.S. Capitol and White House, and park systems in Boston and Seattle.

Among the local parkways, parks, subdivisions, estates and institutional grounds designed by Olmsted or his Brookline, Mass., firm are Indian Hills, Anchorage, Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest, Barret Traditional Middle School, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and the University of Louisville's original Belknap campus.

The project is the second in the foundation's ''Cultural Landscapes as Classrooms'' series; the first features Chicago's Columbus Park.

Information on both CD-ROMs is available at the foundation's Web site: http://www.tclf.org/

Staff writer Martha Elson contributed to this story.