Developed in 1969 by Ginny and Dean Graves of Kansas City, BOX CITY has become a favorite with architects, city planners and especially teachers in educating children how cities develop and prosper.  This unique program provides a hands-on, experimental approach to city planning and design principles; it instills understanding of the development of communities and their present problems and successes.  The city planning curriculum allows students to create their own buildings (from cardboard boxes, and other recycled materials) and then create their own city by placing the boxes on a city grid.

Box City came to Sister MacNamara via Michael Gray, a graduate student from the City Planning Department at the University of Manitoba.  The study of a community is part of the grade 3 social studies curriculum and Michael wanted to investigate environmental perception of children within their own communities.  By studying how children perceive their communities, Michael was hoping to partner his research with city planners in the belief that the professional planning field would realize that city planning needs to involve children.  Using Box City, Michael wanted to allow the students of grade three to participate in a six week curriculum which would teach them the basics of community development, city planning and how cities grow and prosper.