Block party celebrates arts and culture in Washington Park

For six weeks this summer, six South Side high schoolers spent their days exploring the Woodlawn neighborhood, viewing it with dual perspectives for a project created this year by the University's Arts Science Initiative. The students measured air quality and population numbers. They built 3-D maps of the neighborhood, ed its residents and reflected on all of their research through poetry. On July 31, a collection of photographs, hand-drawn maps, written confessions and a recording of Woodlawn residents discussing their neighborhood artfully decorated the walls of the Café Logan. Visitors wandered around the room taking their time with every piece—each created by one of six students through the Woodlawn Urban Observatory program at the University of Chicago. The Woodlawn Urban Observatory, created this year as part of the University's Arts Science Initiative, was designed to teach high school students to engage with and better understand what makes a neighborhood, specifically Woodlawn. Students were selected through the Chicago Public Schools' Department of Career and Technical Education.