A Forest City in the Classroom

“What would your new city look like?”

This was one of the questions at the heart of a recent session, where Ari Susanti, Kei Otsuki, and Femke van Noorloos discussed the Forest City project with primary school students at the Cammingha School in Bunnik. The visit took place on 1 April as part of Utrecht University’s annual Meet the Professor event, in which researchers step into classrooms across Utrecht to share their work with the young students in engaging ways, while also gaining new perspectives from their questions and imaginations.

After a short introduction to Indonesia and the forthcoming capital city of Nusantara, the team invited the children to imagine their own new capital city. “Quite difficult to imagine with a blank page in front of you,” their initial hesitation suggested. Undeterred, the students drew green islands, swimming pools, ice cream shops, palaces and other creative ideas.

The session was met with much enthusiasm and curiosity, and sparked lively discussions about the people, forests, animals already living in the region, and what happens to them when a new city is planned on top of where they live. In explaining these complex urban challenges to children, the researchers found that the most important questions often come from the youngest voices.

You can read about this interaction, and what other researchers discussed with the school students here.