CAM Raleigh: Transforming Communities through Design Education

CAM RALEIGH: buil ding skill

Middle School Summer and High School Studios

Sara Queen, assistant professor of architecture at the College of Design, led middle school students through a week long series of projects that introduced them to the various design disciplines. “One reason to work with middle schoolers is that it’s an age group where you first start to see the world around you and start to make an opinion about it. As designers, we learn how to have the agency to change the world around us. What was great was to see these students come in and start to identify things that should change but not know how to change them. Over the course of the week they get all these tools to suggest how things could be different. That was really fun,” said Queen.

Middle school students were exposed to art and design through projects involving mask-making, architectural modeling, graphic design letterforms and fashion product design. In one project, they used scraps of denim provided by Raleigh Denim to create and propose new prototypes for the company. “We’re actually very surprised with the sophistication of their work. As they were introduced to new materials, the expectations were a little bit higher than what they were used to but the students really rose to the challenge,” said Welch.

Students also experienced the city around them through field trips to design studios like Raleigh Denim, Centerline, Designbox and Clearscapes. “This location is really great for walking field trips. There is a lot of creativity in downtown Raleigh that we get to take advantage of,” said Welch. The middle school and high school studios are muchneeded resources to the community as schools are starting to cut art programs throughout the state and country.

Lane Travis, mother of a summer studio student said, “We hunted and hunted for a program like this and there were none that we could find, and my child is just chomping at the bit to get into graphic design and art. Every evening he came home on fire with the ideas and things that he had seen during the da. Things that he has not gotten to see even though you can go to an art museum, it’s not the same as seeing an artist-in-residence or art actually being created It was a unique opportunity.”

s for the 21st ce ntur y

Middle school summer studio participants showcasing their final works

EXTRA ONLINE : www.design.ncsu.edu/di/camp