CHILDREN'S ENVIRONMENTS RESEARCH GROUP
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Co-Directors: Roger Hart and Selim Iltus
The Children's Environments Research Group (CERG), provides an important link between university scholarship and the development of design, policy and programs that both improve the quality of environments for children and enhance children's interaction with them. CERG assists in the design and redesign of children's environments and strives to encourage programs that foster more dynamic and empowering relationships between children and the environment. As a branch of the Center for Human Environments, CERG collaborates closely with the other sub-groups of this research center.
CERG's training and professional expertise extends across theory and basic research on children's relationship to the physical environment, through architectural programming and design evaluation for children, to the collaborative design of prototypical environments for special populations of children, and to new environmental education programs and policy development concerning children's environments. Although we are open to working with all clients, we are particularly interested in supporting the efforts of low-income communities. Through our work with children in community groups and schools in New York City, we have pioneered approaches to the participation of children in research on their own lives and on the environment. While CERG continues to concentrate its applied research efforts in the low-income neighborhoods and schools of New York City, in recent years it has also increased its collaboration with a number of international children's agencies, including UNICEF and the Save The Children Alliance, in interpreting the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and in planning and management projects for cities in South Asia, Central Asia, and Latin America. CERG is also a partner in "Child Watch," an international network of child rights research organizations.
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