Since 2016, DCI employees of all disciplines have worked with teachers at PPPCS to design and implement an introduction-to-architecture course for select fifth graders. Through landscape, planning, programming, and presentation, practitioners at Design Collective have led a once-a-month engagement with about 30 students, delivering a multi-disciplinary course through experiential learning, culminating in an on-site field trip to the downtown Baltimore office. This year, 18 DCI employees have signed up to teach - coordinating class sessions on architecture, landscape, planning, and interiors. Students are pushed to see their neighborhood differently, changing reference points from video games and cellphones to eyes on the street and neighborhood needs. In turn, the students never cease to surprise them. Often tasked with a project like, “program a recreation center,” students incorporate real-time needs into their end results, often allowing DCI professionals to glimpse inside the actual needs and wants of the neighborhood resident, with youth-driven brainstorms, like a food bank or a free library.