幼儿园和4年级、5年级、6年级和7年级的学生们从Griffith Woods，Elbow Park 和Chinook Park 学校在学年初以一种完全不同的方式开始。他们在卡尔加里国际游戏会议和Beakerhead节期间，发起了关于创建公共艺术的设计挑战。除了幼儿园之外的所有群体都邀请了一位专家到他们的教室，而他们在第二天和第三天上市中心参观了该区域，以便在决定要创作的公共艺术作品之前探索空间。

这些群体会见了卡尔加里市公共艺术部门的代表，并与他进行了关于公共艺术的采访，询问他在公共艺术设计师方面的最佳建议和技巧。学生们了解到，公共艺术往往受所创作的地方的启发，因此他们通过观察来磨练他们的观察技巧，注意到了哪些人在使用公园。学生将根据他们在实地考察中收集到的数据，回答每个班所提出的问题来创建他们的艺术品：

• 我们如何创造让人们可以互动和游戏的公共艺术作品？
• 我们如何创造能激发人们暂时离开繁忙生活、享受乐趣的公共艺术作品？

像这样的设计挑战要求教师和学生走出学校的墙壁，进入社区寻找和解决真正的问题。学生在这个项目的过程中有着很强的发言权，这将使他们涉及到许多课程领域，同时也有助于建立良好的人际关系以良好地开始新学年。

当被问及游戏对他们意味着什么时，一位五六年级的学生说：“游戏就是在你所做的任何事情中找到乐趣。”

创建公共艺术的一部分意味着学生需要了解一旦与世界分享，人们可能会与他们的艺术品互动和改变它。当被问及他们需要与人们分享关于他们艺术品的内容时，整个幼儿园班级同时大声喊道：“不要弄坏它。” 另一个学生说：“要温柔。” 他们希望这个艺术品能让人们感到“快乐”和“惊艳”，并惊叹道：“看这个酷酷的随机艺术品！”

​Kindergarten and Grades 4, 5, 6 and 7 students from Griffith Woods, Elbow Park and Chinook Park schools began the school year in a radically different way. They launched into a design challenge of what it means to create public art during the International Play Conference in Calgary and in conjunction with the Beakerhead festival. All groups, with the exception of Kindergarten, who invited an expert to the comfort of their classroom, visited the downtown area on the second and third days of school to explore the space before deciding what to create as their public art pieces.

The groups met with a representative from the City of Calgary’s Public Art department and interviewed him about public art, asking for his best advice and tips they could use as designers of public art. Students learned that public art is often very heavily inspired by the place it is created for, so they sharpened their observation skills by noticing what kinds of people were using the park. Students will be creating their art in response to questions each class generated from the data they collected on their field trip:

• How might we make public art that people can interact with and lets them play? 
• How might we create public art that inspires people to take a break from their busy day and have fun?

A design challenge like this asks teachers and students to step right out of the walls of the school into the community to find and solve a real problem. Students had a strong voice in the process of this project, which will take them through many curricular areas as well as strong relationship building to begin the year in a good way.

When asked what play meant to them, a Grade 5/6 student stated that “play is to find fun in whatever you’re doing.”

Part of creating public art means that students learn to understand that people may interact with and change their art piece once it is shared with the world. When asked what they need to share with people about their art, the entire Kindergarten class called out at once, “don’t break it.” Another said, “Be gentle.” It is their hope that the art will make people feel “happy” and “amazing” and exclaim, “Look at that cool random art piece!”