This must be the PLaCE: building a new model of stewardship, education, and community inclusion for LA-River Adjacent LAUSD schools

The People’s Lab for Creative Ecology (PLaCE) is the imaginative and expansive community programming arm of the existing Los Angeles River Integrated Design Lab (LA-RIDL). Its pilot program is an extracurricular community science program for local high school students. The program follows a Youth Participatory Action Research framework, an approach to research and social change that is youth-driven and adaptive, focused on producing research that is actionable and directly responsive to the communities in which it is based. Each aim of this program braids together students’ educational growth, professional growth, and growth as River stewards.