My kids really understand solar and earth-heat energy," says a second-grade teacher in Saugus,
California. "Some of them are building solar collectors for their energy course." These young scientists
are part of City Building Educational Program (CBEP), a particular program for kindergarten through
twelfth grade that uses the stages of city planning to teach basic reading, writing and math skills, and
more.
The children don't just plan any city. They map and analyze (分析) the housing, energy, and
transportation requirements of their own district and foretell its needs in 100 years. With the aid of an
architect (建筑师) who visits the classroom once a week, they invent new ways to meet these needs
and build models of their creations. " Designing building of the future gives children a lot of freedom,"
says the teacher who developed this program."They are able to use their own rich imagination and
inventions without fear of blame, because there are no wrong answers in a future context. In fact, as
the class enters the final model-building stage of the program, an elected 'official' and 'planning group'
make all the design decisions for the model city, and the teacher steps back and becomes an adviser."
CBEP is a test of activities, games and imitations that teach the basic steps necessary for
problem-solving: observing, analyzing, working out possible answers, and judging them based on the
children's own standards.