Shape NC Year Two Design Workshop and Training

Shape NC is a three-year, NLI comprehensive project. January 19/20, 2012, NLI conducted the Year Two Design Workshop at the College of Design, NC State University, with nearly forty representatives of ten Model Early Learning Centers (MELCs) from across North Carolina. The NLI team of landscape designers worked with each center to create a design program and conceptual site design for their Outdoor Learning Environment (OLE). Within the three-year project period, a total of 30 MELCs will be installed to serve as regional training sites, together with 27 Preventing Obesity by Design (POD) Demonstration Sites already on the ground—the outcome of an earlier NLI project. The purpose of the eventual 57 model/demonstration/training sites is to stimulate improvement to the quality of OLEs and related educational programs at the nearly 5000 licensed childcare centers across North Carolina—a daunting task.