The goal of this project is to reach out to children and young adults through the school system. In order for this history to live on, it must be taught through school curriculum. The project will incorporate these themes of community and recycling by teaching a younger generation a little bit of forgotten history and the causes that made it what it was.

In order to get to the younger generation to learn about the bulb, we need to find a way to immerse them into this history. This project will incorporate themes of art and liability.  The Albany Bulb is not a kid friendly place at the moment, so this plan will be actualized at a future date when the bulb has been made safe and accessible. The plan for now is to have the young students learn about the Albany Bulb in school. There will be a curriculum taught by a guest speaker to teach the children about the history of the bulb. The goal is to capture the interest of the children without taking them into the bulb and exposing them to potential hazards.

Child Playing on Reclaimed Art at the Bulb by Brenda Arjona

The presentation will consist of photos, audio, video, and hands-on learning. For the hands-on aspect of the lesson, they will learn how to recycle objects that would have otherwise been thrown out and how to reuse objects that can be turned into art or useful tools. For example, they will receive a few items and be asked to take a moment to reimagine them as something else, whether it be an art piece, a tool, or both. In this lesson plan, they will learn about their community’s unspoken history and how to reuse objects to create something could have another purpose or use.

When the Albany Bulb is safer for children to go there, it will be a better experience overall. There will still be guest speakers there to provide a guided tour of the bulb and have the children go to key points at the site. The fieldtrip will be a morning to early afternoon lunch trip in which the students can provide their own lunches or lunches can be provided if there is enough funding. They will visit the locations where the sites would have been and they might possibly be able to use an app to help them see what the site looked like, had the Bulb not been constructed into a park. Those who go on the tour will also be asked to do a project that is hands on. For the younger kids, they will be asked to do drawing projects to make the site more fun for them.

Older students (middle school through high school), will be asked to do some non-official archaeology at the site. Each student will participate in a survey of a particular area or as much of the bulb as they can get to in a day. The goal is to immerse young student in the bulb’s past by having them walk around and explore. Their guides will explain and answer questions about particular sites and objects that might come up along the way.

This screenshot was taken to show where the proposed community building at the Albany Bulb would go. Designer Bernardo Arjona sketched in the hypothetical building at the entrance of the neck of the bulb.

This interactive project touches on sustainability in a few ways. First off, through this project, the students can add to the sustainability of scientific data by doing surveys and learning about research topics. Having them out in the field will give them a better understanding of the type of work that takes place when looking to preserve aspects of the past. The way in which the students will be able to visit and revisit the site, each time being reminded of the intangible and tangible heritage there will add to the sustainability of the Bulb’s past. Finally, the field trips will focus on doing low impact archaeology and projects that aim at keeping the site from being damaged while still being remembered.