Sixty fifth-graders from Broken Arrow Elementary School and their art teacher, Paul Elo, right, learned about Northeast architecture this past Thursday. Emily Randall

By Emily Randall
Northeast News
Oct. 6, 2010

Clipboards in hand, about 60 children from Johnson County took a walking tour of parts of Northeast’s Scarritt Renaissance neighborhood this past Thursday to learn about the historic buildings that so contrast with their own suburban landscape.

The fifth-graders from Broken Arrow Elementary School, in the Shawnee Mission School District, led by art teacher Paul Elo, ventured along Gladstone and Benton boulevards north and south of the Concourse. They completed guided worksheets that had them observing examples of Beaux Arts Classicism, Arts and Crafts, Georgian Revival, Queen Anne, Mission and more architectural styles.

“These kids are suburban or they are suburban-formerly urban, and they just don’t have the opportunity to see large houses with architectural interest,” Elo said. “It’s all Johnson County beige.”

After learning about historic architectural styles, Elo planned to have the children do prints and sculptures based on what they learned back in his art classroom.

Elo has led Broken Arrow students through tours of Northeast for this project for 23 years. He developed the project after completing an architecture course and taking a Historical Society tour of Historic Northeast.

“[This project] is a great exercise in learning how to look,” Elo said. “The reaction of a lot of them is, ‘This is such a big house, what did they do to make so much money?”

After their tour, the children enjoyed a lunch in the sun at the Concourse and picked up trash in the park on their way out.