Become a Landscape Architect

DREAM BIG with Design: TEACHER’S EDITION

On Sunday, October 6 – Tuesday, October 8, a cohort of elementary school educators joined ASLA members at the 2024 annual Conference on Landscape Architecture for DREAM BIG with Design: TEACHER’S EDITION, a three-day professional development event held at the headquarters of ASLA in Washington, DC.

Participants - ranging from STEM and art teachers, to librarians, and administrators - held a minimum of a master's degrees in either education, leadership and administration, library science, or public health.    

Instructors Arnaldo Cardona, ASLA, Taylor D. Metz, ASLA, and Miranda Mote, PhD, ASLA brought extensive design and research experience to the workshop. 

Together, they introduced the profession of landscape architecture and delivered breakout sessions on design topics that framed lesson plans developed by the participants on the following: 

•  Schoolyard as Sustainable Laboratory 
•  Schoolyard as Therapeutic Laboratory
•  Schoolyard as Physical Health and Wellness
•  Schoolyard as Scientific Laboratory
•  Schoolyard as Art and Language Studio

View the Photo Gallery

Workshop Materials

•  Final Agenda 
•  Land Acknowledgement – Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian 
•  Orientation Panel: Welcome to ASLA - Welcome to the Profession

Breakout Sessions: 

•  Reimagining Schoolyards - Award - Winning Designs and Context Sensitive Interventions
•  Healing with Nature: Reconnecting Children Post - COVID
•  The Big Picture - Academic Standards - Scientific Method - Landscape Architecture as a Tool
•  The Role of Art in Landscape Architecture and STEM    

Supplementary Resources:

Cardona is a retired special education, bilingual, art teacher, and landscape architect. While working as a teacher in New York, Cardona launched his own design-build business. He has been an ASLA member since 2005 and was a member of ASLA’s Committee on Education. Currently, Cardona is a Teacher Supervisor at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Art Education Department where he observes future teachers and reflects with them on effective teaching practices. Cardona is the author of two books, K-12 Architecture Education (2022) and K-12 Landscape Architecture Education (2021). Cardona's first Bachelors degree was a pre-professional degree in architecture from the University of Puerto Rico. He holds a Bachelors of Science in Landscape Architecture and Masters in Education from City College of New York. He also holds a Masters in Art Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. Cardona’s Graduate research was in the areas of balanced literacy, critical thinking, portfolio assessment and interdisciplinary curricula that use architecture and the urban landscape as central themes.  

Taylor Metz, ASLA  

Taylor Metz is a landscape architect and Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture at Ball State University. Holding a Master of Landscape Architecture from Ball State and a degree in Communication Studies and Art from Gustavus Adolphus College, Taylor specializes in educational landscapes, schoolyard design, and design thinking. His teaching and research emphasize design pedagogy, advocacy, and innovative, learner-centered educational environments. Committed to advancing the field of landscape architecture, Taylor focuses on creating impactful, inspiring spaces that foster learning, play, and engagement. 

Miranda Mote, ASLA  

Miranda Mote is the Garden Club of America / Prince Charitable Trusts Rome Prize, Landscape Architecture Fellow. She is a historian, artist, and educator based in Philadelphia. Miranda graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Cincinnati (1995), Master of Design in History and Philosophy of Design from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University (2015) where her thesis was awarded distinction by the faculty, and PhD in the History and Theory of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania (2021). She has taught at Temple University, Pratt Institute and currently teaches at the University of Pennsylvania.  

As an artist, she has developed nature printing techniques based on her historical research about the poetics of botanical image making. Her work with the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities in 2021 supported her interest in addressing environmental injustice in Philadelphia and the establishment of Botanography, a non-profit that directly serves students in schools of Philadelphia with arts-focused literacy and botany programming. While in residence at the American Academy in Rome, she has been working with children at two schools in Monteverde and the Academy teaching botanical arts and has been developing her own botanical printmaking methods. 

Please direct questions to Lisa J. Jennings, Senior Manager, Career Discovery and Diversity at ljennings@asla.org.