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Working on Wellness Environments
Working on Wellness Environments (WOW-E) is a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension multidisciplinary community development program
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Alto StoryWalk Featured in The Cherokeean Herald

September 9, 2024 by kcoats

Alto Story Walk The Cherokeean Newspaper articleDownload

Filed Under: Blog, Cherokee County Tagged With: Alto, Cherokee County, StoryWalk

Team Spotlight: Yinglan Hao

May 15, 2024 by kcoats

Photo courtesy of Yinglan Hao.

Yinglan Hao is a third year Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) student at Texas A&M University and Graduate Assistant with WOW-E. WOW-E has been privileged to have Yinglan on the team for the past two and a half years. Yinglan is finishing her final project on park optimization for night time use and will graduate in May. She recently received a Graduate Honor Award in the Analysis and Planning category from the Texas Chapter of the American Society Landscape Architects (TXASLA) for her final project. 

While working on her MLA she developed an interest in research-based design, urban design, and urban planning analysis which she focuses on in her exit project.  Her exit project examines neighborhood suitability for nighttime use, a topic that she says has been somewhat neglected by existing research. She worked with her chair, Dr. Yang Song, and his PhD candidate to analyze visitor patterns through big data, tailor designs to community needs, and integrate adaptive lighting design strategies. She found that much of the existing research examining lighting and lumens focused on urban areas, largely neglecting lighting in the context of neighborhood parks. She used Austin, Texas as her community of focus as neighborhood parks are their primary type of park. She asserts that parks are an important resource for people’s health and can be underutilized if nighttime design and lighting are not thought out. If the design is purely human centric design, it will either fall into the old path of over-illumination (light pollution) and energy waste, or it will lead to a monotonous uniform lighting design that fails to achieve the goal of increasing nighttime park usage. Yinglan maintains that park practitioners and communities care more about the outcomes and pros and cons of lighting fixtures, but the existing guides’ jargon and lighting terms are not user friendly enough for them to work with. As a result of her literature review and research, Yinglan and Dr. Song are working to develop a user-friendly neighborhood lighting toolkit. 

Graphics courtesy of Yinglan Hao, from her final project. Click each image to view larger.

Yinglan has been instrumental in the planning and execution of WOW-E projects. She works with Dr. Sungmin Lee and Dr. Yang Song to develop project renderings to help communities visualize projects. This involves understanding all of the community engagement conducted for a project and understanding the project’s goals. Prior to working with WOW-E, Yinglan had not worked on projects with community engagement. Now in all of her designs she thinks about how people will use the space when the project is implemented. She realized that combining community engagement with data-based/research-based analysis is the best way to contribute to underserved communities. Her favorite WOW-E project to work on was renderings for the St. Eugene project in Roma, Texas. She especially enjoyed getting to design a painted place that had birds in the design. The implementation of this design made the path from the plaza to the school more pedestrian friendly while echoing the local bird watching culture. 

Renderings Yinglan created for various WOW-E Connectivity projects. Click each image to make larger.

Yinglan will continue with her studies prior to graduation and will continue to support WOW-E in the meantime. To learn more about the working on Wellness Environments program, visit wowe.tamu.edu. 

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Roma, Starr County, team spotlight

Cherokee, Houston, Webb, and Wilbarger Counties Host Local WOW-E Kickoffs

April 2, 2024 by kcoats

Four counties hosted local WOW-E Kick Offs. The local kick offs provided an opportunity to introduce the community to the WOW-E program and to discuss the local environments to get healthy foods, unhealthy foods, and places to be physically active. Participants identified barriers to making healthy changes in their communities. They also completed an ease impact where they assessed the ease and impact of different projects in their community. Learn more in the county kickoff reports, find them here.

The next step in the 2024 WOW-E Technical Assistance Cycle is for counties to host a Community Challenge to learn how to apply for WOW-E technical assistance. Stay tuned for more! Sign up for our listserv to stay up to date on all things WOW-E.

Filed Under: Blog, Cherokee County, Houston County, Webb County, Wilbarger County Tagged With: Cherokee County, Houston County, Webb County, Wilbarger County

USDA Rural Placemaking Innovation Challenge

July 22, 2022 by kcoats

The USDA Rural Placemaking Innovation Challenge provides funding for planning support, technical assistance, or training to foster placemaking in rural communities. The USDA defines rural placemaking as a collaborative engagement process that helps leaders from rural communities create quality places where people will want to live, work, play and learn.

There is more information about who should apply, funding details, an application checklist, and more on USDA’s website. Click here to learn more and apply.

To read about previous recipients’ work, click here.

There will be a virtual General Office Hours event on August 3, 2022 with more information and a time to ask questions. Click here to register.

Filed Under: Blog, grant opportunity Tagged With: grant opportunity

Apply for the Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) and Maintenance Action Institute

July 22, 2022 by kcoats

AgriLife Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design and Maintenance Action Institute photo collage.

Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) is a multidisciplinary approach to create spaces that aim to prevent crime, invite positive use, and make users feel safer.

Up to 65 local practitioners and advocates from Hudspeth, Maverick, Starr, Webb, and Zapata counties will be accepted to participate in the WOW-E CPTED and Maintenance Action Institute. Applicants can apply for travel assistance to the Action Institute through the WOW-E partnership with the Texas Recreation and Park Society (TRAPS).Up to 65 local practitioners and advocates from Hudspeth, Maverick, Starr, Webb, and Zapata counties will be accepted to participate in the WOW-E CPTED and Maintenance Action Institute. Applicants can apply for travel assistance to the Action Institute through the WOW-E partnership with the Texas Recreation and Park Society (TRAPS).  

Who Should Apply:

Park practitioners, public works practitioners, planners, local park and trail groups and advocates, law enforcement professionals, community leaders.  

At the Action Institute:

  • Learn CPTED principles to make safer, more usable public spaces in your community
  • Create a mini-plan for a public space in your community
  • Learn about topics such as: maintenance planning, traffic calming, community engagement, lighting, park site plan reviews, public art & safety and more!

Join us in McAllen, TX at the LaQuinta McAllen Convention Center:

  • Tuesday, August 23, 2022, 10 am – 6 pm
  • Wednesday, August 24, 2022, 9 am – 5 pm
  • Thursday, August 26, 2022, 9 am – 4 pm

*Note: Attendees must attend all three days of the Action Institute, all day.

Click here to apply.

Filed Under: Blog

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