educ 3100 Photovoice

Hey, I'm Brian.

I'll be walking you through my photo voice that I've

created for E.

U C 3100.

My photo voice will be focusing on the student experience,

particularly elementary school students, access to green and Place, based

based on the elementary school that they attend.

There are three elementary schools in the cliffside area that

will be taking a look at.

We'll be taking a look at John A.

Leslie Cliffside Public School and China Drive Public School.

Before we get started.

Just thio give a visualization.

This is a highlight of the cliffside area and the

three borders of the school, the top most being John

A. Leslie, the lower right hand being China drive in

the lower left hand cliffside public school.

So the first photo I would like to highlight is

a photo from John A.

Leslie. This is a photo of their backfield has taken

in November 2020 shortly after school that I would probably

around 3, 30 and four o'clock.

What I wanted, I wanted to highlight with this photo

was the lack of equipment available to students on dhe.

Really lack of infrastructure.

There's no social outside place.

Gree meeting place.

There's little to no actual equipment.

There's no basketball.

That's it was very little on this playfully plate area.

And it was interesting because this was the only space

there where they were actually students.

That the school, Johnny Leslie, does have the highest attendance

of the three schools in the area.

Uh, but it was interesting to see with the highest

attendance how little outdoor infrastructure was available to the students.

The school also does front on to Midland Avenue, which

is a fairly large and busy street.

On it is the Onley green space that is accessible

for these students in the area without crossing at least

one major intersection.

Yeah, this second photo I wanted to highlight is the

front view from Cliffside Elementary, taken from the front of

the property.

This is the Onley entrance to this.

You have to walk by this to get to the

school. That is the only entrance.

It This is the backside of a set of Kingston

commercial residential units.

Um, and the reason for highlighting this is this is

the student reality.

This is what students have to walk by every day

to access through school.

This is what they look at.

This is the environment that they are exposed to Onda

as you'll see in the coming photos.

This is drastically different, different from the experience of either

of the other schools in the area.

For example, trying Dr School, our third photo is taken

from the front steps of trying.

Dr. Elementary Drive Elementary has the smallest population of the

three schools.

It also has the smallest boundaries of any school in

the TSB Act.

Access by a small, small, quiet road on the area

that it, uh, occupies is generally an above average income

area. There's ample amount of green space is seen in

the photo, and it does.

Back on Lake Ontario, moving to the back of the

school, we take a look now at the back of

Cliffside Elementary.

As we can see, it's predominantly concrete.

There is some play equipment available, which is different than,

uh, you know what we saw at one a.

Leslie. But the infrastructure is aging.

There is a very large slope that may not be

very pronounced in this photo, but would limit access thio,

some students with physical disabilities and unfortunately, this playground.

This this place based in green space isn't terribly accessible

to students, especially in the after hours of school.

Because of the area that is located in backing on

to the commercial residential units at Kingston Road, the area

isn't always the safest after dark and has been, uh,

known to be frequented by drug users and other marginalized

communities such as homeless and nomadic persons.

This is the side view at China Drive Elementary, featuring

a new solid wood social area outwards available to students

one of the Onley outdoor social areas that I saw

the three schools, but one of several acts kind drive.

Yeah, yeah, no one was on site.

This photo was taken shortly after 4 p.m. And it

was the only school that had nobody, nobody at it

both during the time of photographing.

Both Johnny, Leslie and Cliffside did have people present on

the property.

Uh, my drive was the Onley that only property that

have anybody there eso again, possibly because of the low

population, but definitely does seem that the infrastructure is being

under used.

This also was taken a China drive.

It is newly installed playground equipment.

It's currently unavailable due to Cova, but it is on.

Lee is one of only two playgrounds that I saw

while shooting this photo voice.

It is also the largest, the other being at Johnny

Leslie that was a small playground fenced off solely for

the access of a younger grades.

Reason for taking this photo on why I wanted to

highlight it was e find.

This really did bring light to the mis allocation of

resources. This is by far, uh, and I was by

far the smallest population either of the schools in the

area. It occupies normally the one of the largest spaces

geographically, but it clearly has a lot more outdoor infrastructure,

outdoor, green space and natural place space available to its

students than the two sister schools in its area.

To add to this disparity, this is a our last

picture that will be taking a look at is green

space access to the waterfront trail that runs along the

north side of so outside of the city north side

of Lake.

This is step away from China Drive Public School.

It provides access to a very, very large green space,

expensive with tennis courts, conservation area and other facilities as

well. There's year round access to this and it is

by far the largest green space in the area.

It is accessed Onley through the China Dr Community and

really is a is readily available to a small roof.

So first of all, I want to say thank you

for watching.

I also want to highlight the fact that this this

photo voice is the purpose of this photo point is

to bridge communities.

It really is to highlight the fact that although we

all are in the cliffside area, the allocation of resources

for our students, for especially elementary students in regards to

green space in place space available through them appears to

be mismanaged or misplaced.

Um, we would like to see a change in the

community, bring us together as ah one community rather than

three separate communities and encourage equitable access to bring in

place base, especially for for these elementary school students making

it a safe space, making in an accessible place and

really putting the resources where they need to go, creating

a means based allocation of resources rather than a population

or an income based, um, it may even may even

encourage a re division of the school borders, perhaps the

way the current borders air laid out create part of

this inequality.

I also chose to highlight this because as a technological

educator, part of what we cover is sustainability, green technology

and environmental studies.

Um, one of the one of the courses that we

may end up teaching is Forest Street.

So highlighting the access to green space for me was

very important because this is where students begin their journey.

This is what creates the the draw creates the question,

creates that Dr Learn Mawr having access to that green

place as a student so and something, I felt very,

uh, it was very important.

And being elementary students, when they don't realize the effect

that this has on them, and two, they have little

to no ability to speak up for themselves, even if

they do notice the disparity that they're experiencing, don't I?

Projects like this project of the photo voice are refreshing,

and especially as an educator who may be teaching in

the area, it really does help us to develop relationships

with our students, to understand what our students experiences are,

even though they're all part of the same community.

The experiences of student that goes to Johnny Leslie versus

trying versus Cliffside public school could be drastically different.

And the images and the environment that we're exposed to

on a daily basis is drastically different.

So it helps us an educator to understand that I

understand that one school isn't necessarily the other.

Teaching at one other techniques and pedagogy that we used

for teaching at one school may not necessarily translate to

another may not be well received.

Knowing the environment, knowing the access to play in green

space, their students have affect how we shape our curriculum

and the interactions that we have with students.

So thank you for taking the time to watch this

video. And thank you for following me through our photo

voice. Wish you all the best.

Have a great day.

educ 3100 Photovoice

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