PlanPhilly is a subsection of the local NPR news affiliate, WHYY, in Philadelphia. Our team focused on covering the city infrastructure, design implementation, and the role public spaces provide in the overall health and functioning of the urban landscape. During my time there, I spearheaded a project researching the state of public school playgrounds in the city. For this project, I established a field study for 149 sites, conducted interviews and wrote reports for the writers based on this data.
❓A lack of clear, comprehensive reporting on the state of elementary school playground facilities.
🤔 Overuse of technical terms buried the existing reports, making it less accessible for communities to advocate for themselves.
💰It was not clear exactly how the city's existing budget for playground revitalization was being used.
The outcome of this research included a news article, a series of podcasts on the topic, and a community forum.
I initiated the discovery phase by researching and mapping out the local stakeholders. These included school district officials, local non-profits involved in playground renovation programs, and involved community members. Next, I arranged to interview representatives of each of these groups. During these interviews, the stakeholders confirmed my suspicion that there was a lack of comprehensive pre-existing documentation.
The stakeholder interviews led me and my editor to determined the need to conduct a widespread field study of the state of playgrounds in the city. I chose to focus on elementary schools of which there are 149 sites. In designing this field study, I wanted to establish a comprehensive baseline of the elementary playground facilities in the city. To document each site, I took photographs, noted firsthand observations, and interviewed local residents. I included a section in my data collection to verify existing information from the School District reports, and I expanded the categories to focus on existence of playground equipment, quality of the play area, and the existence and quality of landscaping.
From conducting and gathering an extensive amount of interviews, I was able to define groupings of personas relevant to the playground community.
A snapshot of my data collection is exhibited on the right. The initial data revealed that two-thirds of Philadelphia elementary schools do not have usable playgrounds. Furthermore, I was able to code the existence or non-existence of a site by zip code. This revealed a distinctive pattern: residents in areas with higher property values and income levels had greater access to playgrounds. Socioeconomic data revealed that zip codes with higher access to playgrounds tended to be whiter. Meanwhile, playgrounds in zip codes with a higher Black and Brown population had less access to renovated playgrounds and were more likely to have no playground at all.
From the field study, I was able to create a comprehensive map of the city’s school playgrounds. More simply, it was an accessible view of if and where playgrounds exist in the city. Furthermore, this visual model served to emphasize the patterns uncovered in my field study.
I compiled my research findings, data, and images into a report for my editor. My editor and I collaborated with an in-house reporter to write a news article. In her reporting, the reporter chose to center the experience of a family living in zip code affected by the "playground desert." She added her own layer of in-depth interviewing with the family and their children. The article includes data visualizations of the city's playgrounds overlayed by medium household income, status of playground (established playground, planned renovation, or no playground), and the percentage of children experiencing obesity.
The research and resulting article were used to create a podcast series. The series documented the local playground experience in Philadelphia, and also contrasted the local experience with that of San Francisco. It is important for our users to hear other city's alternatives because it creates space for what is possible in Philadelphia's future. One repeated issue during my field study was that some renovated playgrounds impaired community access to the sites when the school was not in session. This podcast featured San Francisco's commitment to green schoolyards, which included opening up access to communities beyond school hours.
The series enable WHYY users to utilize an accessible alternative to reading the article. This is essential for blind users who want to accessibly engage with their content; but, it also enables WHYY to produce content for their radioshow as well as provide an alternative for users on the go.
Pulse Podcast
The Pulse: Podcast Series via WHYY.
Lastly, but perhaps, most importantly, WHYY hosted a community forum in Olney, a zip code with one of the highest "playground deserts" in the city. The goal of this event was to center community members most impacted by the lack of renovated playgrounds, providing a space to discuss the research findings with reporters, community members, and city officials all convening in one room. After a presentation and Q-A of the findings, community members worked together through a participatory design session. This session was meant to encourage the visualization of members' ideal playground and provide action steps as to how to implement these designs in the community.
Designing and conducting this research study was a huge learning experience. The original intention of this study was to establish a comprehensive baseline on the state of playground facilities in Philadelphia. Publishing an easily accessible map, which illustrated this baseline was a great first step. Furthermore, the articles, podcasts and community forum raised awareness to the need for safer, more accessible playgrounds.
Looking back, there are a few alterations I would make to this study to increase the outcomes for the community including issuing a playground survey, designing and publishing an playground advocacy guide, recommendations for increasing transparency of city's playground revitalization budget, and recommendations for community collaboration on playground designs prior to the implementation stage.