For a pre-kindergarten (preK) class, designing a 3-D map of a newly constructed playground offered authentic opportunities to participate, deliberate, and solve an authentic problem. Responding to the compelling question--"How do we build community spaces that are welcoming to, representative of, and sustaining for all community…

Judy Nelson thinks it's important to understand what the community wants for its young people, "which means lots of listening." We need to give taxpayers more good reasons to support libraries, she says, and the community's problems and unmet needs are opportunities for libraries to be an integral part of the solution. One problem Nelson…