Connect Stop is an intergenerational, joint bus stop for both school busses and community circulators. The main Connect Stop would occur at the local elementary school in Upper Arlington where the senior center is right next door. Connect stops would also occur in neighborhoods and along roads where there is a crossover of where school children and older adults live and get picked up. Connect Stop is a way for children and older adults to develop new relationships and spend time together. There will be books, games, question cards, and other interactive materials at the bus stops to help facilitate conversation. Games like hopscotch will also be drawn on sidewalks to help interaction and movement. Connect Stop is a great way for regular contact with other individuals who may be on a similar schedule as you.
Connect Stop, as a design conjecture, was rooted out of research regarding ageism and intergenerational connection. Research shows that ageism is very prevalent in our society through marketing, stereotypes, and is even present in children starting at age 3! This discrimination of people at different ages has been studied and proven to be decreased by more frequent intergenerational interactions. Some intergenerational events though have a critique of being too infrequent to make an impact. Seeing someone daily or weekly at a bus stop would facilitate regular intergenerational interaction. This may only be proposed in this particular instance because an elementary school happens to be next to a senior center. It also seems unlikely for people to actually cross paths frequently, but Connect Stop gets me thinking about other regular activities that youth and older adults do separately, that could possibly be combined to help ageism and get more intergenerational interaction. (I also would like to research if older adults even want intergenerational interaction!)
