Fall Creek Needed a New Playground. The Students Got to Design It.

    It’s the end of an era: Fall Creek Elementary School’s iconic wooden playground, unique in ICSD, has been replaced. The former, wooden play structure was built in 2001 by Playgrounds by Leathers and assembled by local volunteers.

    The community-built structure was deemed in need of replacement due to its age and condition.

    But the play space’s legacy will live on, with its replacement designed using extensive input from the school’s own students. Janet Loebach, assistant professor of child development at Cornell University, partnered with students at Fall Creek to plan designs for a new playground—which were later relayed to district consultant TetraTech to be incorporated into the new play space.

    Through a series of lessons in the school’s two fifth-grade classrooms during the spring of 2023, the students learned about the features of successful play spaces and voiced their opinion on which features they preferred. Loebach and her students from Cornell met with one class for eleven sessions and the other for three sessions. Children were divided into smaller groups within their classes—each group ultimately creating a blueprint for the new play area.

    Meanwhile, Loebach and her students conducted research based on the lessons about the impacts of “co-designing” play spaces along with the youth they’re designed for. Often, play areas are designed with little to no input from the population they serve.

    In an April 2024 presentation to the Ithaca City School District Board of Education (BoE)—after her time working with the Fall Creek classrooms had concluded—Loebach explained that working with the students allowed them to gain an added perspective. One thing children showed was that they enjoyed playgrounds with “secret” hideaways and passageways.

    “We tend to think of the real physical play activities and they really want that. One thing we don’t often hear—or, it’s very important to them but we don’t always pay attention to it—they love hidden nooks in the play space,” she said during her presentation to the BoE.

    This past summer, the new playground—inspired by the students’ ideas—was completed just where the wooden one had sat for the prior twenty-five years. It was finished just in time for the start of the academic year.

    In addition to the time she spent with the students of Fall Creek, Loebach did similar work with students of Beverly J. Martin (BJM) Elementary School, whose playground will likely be replaced soon, too—although it’s unclear how district conversations surrounding the possible closure of elementary schools in upcoming years will play into decisions surrounding BJM’s playground. BJM was one of the schools an outside consultant earlier this year said may warrant closure in coming years due to dropping district-wide enrollment, but ICSD officials have not publicly announced plans to close BJM or any other school.

    Last June, families got together to celebrate the iconic playground in its last days. “The event honored years of memories while helping raise funds for a future mural that will commemorate this special part of Fall Creek history,” an online post read.