full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Mara Mintzer: How kids can help design cities

Unscramble the Blue Letters


(Laughter)

It's not that these constraints aren't real, but if we kill off ideas from the beginning, it limits our creativity and dnapems the design process. Kids, on the other hand, think about possibilities. For kids, the sky is the limit. Literally. When we worked with middle-school students to design teen-friendly parks, they drew pictures of snyiivdkg, hang gliding,

(Laughter)

and jumping from tnaoepmlirs into giant foam pits.

(Laughter)

Some of this sounds far-fetched, but the commonalities among the activities revealed an important story. Our adolescents wanted thrill-seeking opportunities. Which makes perfect sense, given their developmental stage in life. So our task, as crencntoos between iitasnorpin and rlteaiy, was to point them towards activities and equipment that actually could be iltsenlad in a park. This is exactly what parks in Australia have done, with their esxentvie zip liens and their 30-foot-tall climbing twoers.

Open Cloze


(Laughter)

It's not that these constraints aren't real, but if we kill off ideas from the beginning, it limits our creativity and _______ the design process. Kids, on the other hand, think about possibilities. For kids, the sky is the limit. Literally. When we worked with middle-school students to design teen-friendly parks, they drew pictures of _________, hang gliding,

(Laughter)

and jumping from ___________ into giant foam pits.

(Laughter)

Some of this sounds far-fetched, but the commonalities among the activities revealed an important story. Our adolescents wanted thrill-seeking opportunities. Which makes perfect sense, given their developmental stage in life. So our task, as __________ between ___________ and _______, was to point them towards activities and equipment that actually could be _________ in a park. This is exactly what parks in Australia have done, with their _________ zip _____ and their 30-foot-tall climbing ______.

Solution


  1. towers
  2. reality
  3. trampolines
  4. lines
  5. skydiving
  6. installed
  7. inspiration
  8. dampens
  9. connectors
  10. extensive

Original Text


(Laughter)

It's not that these constraints aren't real, but if we kill off ideas from the beginning, it limits our creativity and dampens the design process. Kids, on the other hand, think about possibilities. For kids, the sky is the limit. Literally. When we worked with middle-school students to design teen-friendly parks, they drew pictures of skydiving, hang gliding,

(Laughter)

and jumping from trampolines into giant foam pits.

(Laughter)

Some of this sounds far-fetched, but the commonalities among the activities revealed an important story. Our adolescents wanted thrill-seeking opportunities. Which makes perfect sense, given their developmental stage in life. So our task, as connectors between inspiration and reality, was to point them towards activities and equipment that actually could be installed in a park. This is exactly what parks in Australia have done, with their extensive zip lines and their 30-foot-tall climbing towers.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
civic area 4
asked children 3
city council 2
city initiative 2
including children 2
city planning 2
young people 2
high school 2
school students 2
public art 2
city friendly 2
successful city 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
high school students 2

Important Words


  1. activities
  2. adolescents
  3. australia
  4. beginning
  5. climbing
  6. commonalities
  7. connectors
  8. constraints
  9. creativity
  10. dampens
  11. design
  12. developmental
  13. drew
  14. equipment
  15. extensive
  16. foam
  17. giant
  18. gliding
  19. hand
  20. hang
  21. ideas
  22. important
  23. inspiration
  24. installed
  25. jumping
  26. kids
  27. kill
  28. laughter
  29. life
  30. limit
  31. limits
  32. lines
  33. literally
  34. opportunities
  35. park
  36. parks
  37. perfect
  38. pictures
  39. pits
  40. point
  41. possibilities
  42. process
  43. real
  44. reality
  45. revealed
  46. sense
  47. sky
  48. skydiving
  49. sounds
  50. stage
  51. story
  52. students
  53. task
  54. towers
  55. trampolines
  56. wanted
  57. worked
  58. zip