The purpose of the "How Shall We Grow?" weblog (www.howshallwegrow.org) is to promote and foster discussion as Central Florida faces the opportunities and challenges associated with the projected doubling of our population from 3.5 million citizens in 2006 to 7.2 million in 2050.

The “How Shall We Grow?” tour visited Lake Howell High School in Seminole County. Fifty-four, student members of the councils of student governments representing all nine Seminole County high schools gathered to participate in this meeting.

This special presentation provided myregion.org the ability to play the “Chip Game” with the population that will be most affected by the development and growth of the Central Florida region over the next fifty years; our children.

myregion.org President, Jacob Stuart, specifically wanted to do this type of outreach with the youth of our region. He says, “It's important that all residents are educated about the growth issues we will be face in the coming decades. By learning about the issues we hope that individuals can then make informed decisions.”

Sandra Robinson, a Seminole County School Board Member, introduced the program, and Jacob Stuart to the student leaders. Sandra stressed the importance of the issues that were about to be presented and shared her experience with the “Chip Game” from her participation in the 2005-2006 Regional Leadership Academy, comprised of regional leaders from across seven counties.

Jacob provided an overview of the How Shall We Grow? campaign and consistently mentioned that today's audience has the power to make the decisions that will guide our growth. When students would ask, "what are they planning on doing…" Jacob would correct them and say, "what would we do…"

Once the chip game started, the students were divided into mixed groups and had to work collectively with those students from neighboring high schools as they attempted to plan for the growth of the Central Florida region.

How was this session different from other community input meetings?  While the students may be young, they were not unaware of the challenges we face in the future. They have experienced growth first-hand.

In previous sessions, Phil Laurien from the East Central Florida Regional Planning Council, often says that the chip game is difficult to play for those, "who know too much." Many times thinking is constrained by the limitations of current land-use plans and is focused on the short term. Land-use plans can change and one of the purposes of the How Shall We Grow? campaign is to think beyond a five-to-ten year horizon. The student-participants in this session are able to look at the problems with a different perspective.

At the end of the game, the maps from each region were brought together and the table 'mayors' described their growth plans. The students were especially sensitive to environmental issues and concentrated their development in pockets with high density to save greenspace. One interesting point is that some of the students already have a strong feeling of the type of community they wish to live in, i.e. urban, rural. These opinions influenced the decisions they planned for their maps. One table even based many of its decisions on commute time.

The level of interest and dialogue among the students was exciting. Many of them have an understanding of the issues, and by taking part in the processs, can feel empowered.

In conclusion, Jacob stressed that they are the ones that can set the course for the future. We encourage students and family members from Seminole County to attend the next community input session scheduled for Monday, September 25th from 6:00 - 8:30 pm at the Longwood Community Center.