UPDATE: Check out results of this project.

Climate Smart Rhinebeck and the Village Comprehensive Plan Committee invite students, 8th through 12th grades, to participate in a special Rhinebeck 2042 Workshop: Phase 1 Future Visioning & Design Thinking. The goal of the day is to provide a space for students to inform our comprehensive planning and to develop skills and experience with design thinking, advocacy, and civic engagement.

- Saturday, May 14

- 9am - 4pm with lunch provided

- Location: 83 E Market St, Open Gate Coffeehouse (cute white building next to the brick Methodist Church)

- Wear good walking shoes

Please sign up via this form. Space is limited to 20 students.

If you can't make it on May 14 but are interested in other opportunities like this, you can let us know that below. There will be many public conversations over the coming months and we hope that youth will participate in all of these! And the Town will also be updating its Comprehensive Plan so there will be ways to connect to that as well.

DETAILS:

For Phase 1 (on May 14), we'll start off with a future visioning exercise: What do you want Rhinebeck to be like and look like in 20 years? What will it be like for a student your age in the year 2042?

Then you'll head out to explore the village in small groups to do a guided assessment of this place. How does transportation work for different types of people? How do people interact? Where do people congregate or relax? How do people find out what's going on?

Finally, we'll regroup together and mark up the maps of Rhinebeck, including from our Natural Resources Inventory, and discuss what we found on our assessment. Where are the gaps between what we want in the future and what we have now? Can the group find consensus on a priority issue for youth?

This workshop is facilitated by Cynthia Nikitin of the Project for Public Spaces and Karine Duteil of KaN Landscape Design.

For Phase 2 (in the summer), we will ask youth in the larger community to also do a walking assessment of the village, talk to people, and think about what they want in the future. Samuel’s will give a treat for their efforts J and we will analyze the results.

And the best way to bring this all to life? By actually designing some solutions. Youth will select a place in Rhinebeck that they will then redesign with the help of local experts, and we will also launch a Future of Rhinebeck Minecraft Challenge for those that like to build in the virtual world.

In Phase 3 (in the fall), students will draft policy recommendations for the Comprehensive Plan.

We're excited to meet you!

—Village Trustee, Vanessa Bertozzi, trusteebertozzi@villageofrhinebeckny.gov

—Scout Pronto Breslin, Student and Comprehensive Plan Sub-Committee and CSC TF Member

—Jennifer Breslin, Futuristas, Rhinebeck Science Foundation, jennicolebreslin@gmail.com