McDevitt civics class earns state recognition for sidewalk accessibility project

Four students from McDevitt Middle School have received recognition from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education for their work on a student-led civics project addressing sidewalk accessibility in the city. 

Jacob Belding, Isaac Hayward, Dylan Johanson and Cameron Devine, all members of Ryan Hanlon’s eighth grade civics class, traveled to the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate in Boston to present their project at a statewide civics competition. They were chosen by their classmates to represent McDevitt Room 324.

Their project focuses on damaged and missing sidewalks across Waltham, which the class identified as a barrier to pedestrian safety.

The class began the project after spending a week examining problems in their school community and city. With this winter’s heavy blizzards fresh in their minds, concerns about icy sidewalks and unsafe bicycling routes came up often. 

Belding discovered an online tool called Project Sidewalk, developed by the Makeability Lab at the University of Washington’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science. The platform uses Google Earth’s street view to allow volunteers anywhere in the world to virtually walk city streets and label accessibility problems, including broken pavement, missing curb ramps and other obstacles. 

Belding presented the tool to the class and his group was immediately on board. “I greatly enjoyed discovering and subsequently looking into Project Sidewalk as a solution to the sidewalk-related issues that pedestrians in Waltham have to deal with,” Belding said. 

Hanlon reached out directly to Project Sidewalk’s founder, professor Jon Froehlich, who gave a live presentation to the class over Zoom. 

“I was so impressed with the students,” Froehlich said. “They had a list of prepared questions. Each student would stand up, walk over to the camera, and read their question carefully and then listen attentively to my answer.”

The students shared his excitement for the impact they might be able to have. “I loved hearing what professor Froehlich had to say about developing this project and his advice for how we should implement it in Waltham,” Belding said of the Zoom presentation.

Because of the students’ project, Waltham became the 51st city in the world added to the Project Sidewalk database and the first in New England, joining Chicago, Mexico City, Amsterdam and São Paulo, among others. 

Over the course of the project, the class virtually examined more than 22 miles of Waltham streets, contributing 2,473 labels and 5,025 validations documenting accessibility problems. They also conducted a community survey on sidewalk accessibility with 593 respondents.

They found that while Waltham has curb cuts at many intersections, a number of them are angled incorrectly, directing wheelchair users into the street rather than into the crosswalk. 

“It was quite eye-opening,” Hanlon said. 

The next step for the class is to present their findings to City Council later this summer. 

Action civics projects are required for all eighth graders in Massachusetts. At McDevitt this year, 12 projects were submitted. Judges selected five to represent the school at the state event, and Hanlon’s class was among them.

The class learned about their commendation during the final week of school. Each received a personalized letter from DESE Commissioner Pedro Martinez, and their project is now commended on DESE’s website for achievement in research and investigation.

“My favorite part was conducting all the research with my group and presenting our findings to such a diverse audience that included our elected officials,” Johanson said. “It was nice to know that we could cause a change in our community through this project.”

Hanlon said the project was a great way for the students to see the power of their activism, and the vast possibility of the impact they can make. “It was public acknowledgment of the work they did,” he said. “When we talk about action civics, it’s a slow-moving process, and it’s just being involved that’s important.”

The public can contribute to the effort by visiting Waltham’s page on Project Sidewalk and helping to label and map the city’s streets and accessibility issues, in hopes that more data will help direct municipal action and funding toward safer sidewalks.