Interviewing the girls

For a different class, an assignment required me to interview a child about his or her primary modes of transportation (mainly to and from school) and about their neighborhood and sense of place. This was made much easier since I already knew of some pretty cool Casey kids who would be completely willing to partake in this type of interview. My partner and I interviewed three girls from our Wednesday group. The first half of the questions we asked were primarily about how they travel. They all said that they prefer biking because it's healthy for them and for the environment. They all said that weather is a big factor in if they get rides or not, but when they do, they carpool with one another. This showed me a bit of background to how they came to be so environmentally knowledgeable: their parents. It was great when one of their mothers showed up and told us about how the girls were raised and how they have all be taught to compost, eat organic, grow as much of their food as possible, etc., all proving why these girls are so keen on keep nature above any other element of design. The rest of the questions were about community. They told us a lot about the Boulder community that we do not see as college students and could never see unless we had grown up here. They are given a lot of freedom, they know all of their neighbors, and their neighborhoods function in what seems to be a small co-op manner. Again, this information was helpful to understand why the design in the manner that they do. Neighborhoods are important to them, unlike many kids who don't feel any sort of attachment to where they live because they aren't allowed to experience it. It is also interesting to me that these girls seem so much older than most kids their age. I can't help but wonder if its due to the great amount of safe freedom they've been given while growing up. I'm very happy I was able to do this interview with them since it made me understand so much (that I did not expect out of it!) about how they function within the club as young designers.
2 April 2008
-Chelsea