Mark Groulx, assistant professor in UNBC’s School of Environmental Planning – photos 250News

Prince George, B.C. – The 15^th annual UNBC-CNC Teaching and Learning Conference kicks off today and attendees will be welcomed by a large chalk mandala in UNBC’s Agora space.

Work started yesterday and will continue throughout the conference says one of the facilitators and educational developer at The Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology Amy Blanding.

She notes it’s all about building community.

“It’s sort of a placemaking activity,” she says. “The idea is the networking and sort of underground community that supports an ecosystem and it’s a metaphor for the teaching and learning community here at UNBC and in Prince George. That was the idea behind the design and now everyone is filling it in with their own images and colours and ideas.”

Blanding says it’s the first time they’ve created a chalk mandala and says the goal is to take mundane spaces and bring them alive.

“Agora meaning gathering place and typically we don’t gather in that space at UNBC. So, by bringing people together there and providing music and letting people draw with chalk, we’re sort of building community.”

“It’s just an exciting way hopefully to get people out,” adds Mark Groulx, an assistant professor in the School of Environmental Planning. “We’ve had lots of people come out and contribute. One of the things I like about placemaking is for almost no money, you can please a lot of people and kind of help people come together and do something different.”