VIDEO: High schoolers work with CERH to design park
PERRY COUNTY, Ky. - Students from three Perry County high schools are working together this fall to design a park that will be accessible to everyone in the community.
The “Coordinating and Assisting the Reuse of Assistive Technology: Together One Priority” or “CARAT-TOP” program is an initiative led by the University of Kentucky’s Center of Excellence in Rural Health.
Its fall cohort launched on Monday. Students from Hazard, Perry Central, and Buckhorn High Schools were divided into mixed-school teams, with each group focusing on a different sensory element of the future sensory park in Hazard. The sensory elements include: balance, hearing, smell, visual and touch.
“It’s a 10-week program that we bring in local high-school students of all abilities, so those with and without disabilities, to make changes in their community,” said program manager Keisha Wells. “We teach them about accessibility, we teach them how to adapt things for people with certain types of disabilities.”
"CARAT-TOP," created by the University of Kentucky Center of Excellence in Rural Health (UK CERH) and the Kentucky Appalachian Rural Rehabilitation Network (KARRN), is a program for rural health workforce development and community improvement, focusing on accessibility and empowering students as community change agents.
The Appalachian Center for Assistive Technology (ACAT) is the Assistive Technology Resource Center serving eastern Kentucky and is a part of Kentucky Assistive Technology Service (KATS) Network. ACAT, led by Director Pat Kitzman, PT, PhD and professor in Physical Therapy and the Rehabilitation Sciences PhD Program in the College of Health Sciences, oversees projects like CARAT-TOP.
Students said they are excited to bring their own perspectives to the project.
“I’m in the group for smell and we’re working on different scents,” said Buckhorn sophomore Molly Mullins. “We’re planning on starting a garden and using different flowers and scents to make the park more comfortable for people.”
Perry Central freshman Alaina Baker said she is drawing information from a family member.
“My cousin, he has autism... whenever he goes to sensory parks, he always likes the slides that like have the little rolling things,” she said.
For Hazard senior Aubrey Cornett, CARAT-TOP has been part of her entire high school career. The program has even shaped her future plans.
“Before starting this I didn’t really have an interest in the medical field,” Cornett said. “But now I’m looking at medical engineering and how accessibility works into engineering because that’s what I want to do.”
At the end of the program, students will present their final designs to their parents, local leaders, school officials and an engineering team.