Summary

Joyce Alade
Collecting Information
Upon given the task of enhancing Brooklyn Technical High School’s 1st floor Physical Education center, a task as vast as this requires extensive information regarding physical activities and a thorough analysis of the school gym and gyms in other colleges that I would like Brooklyn Technical H.S.’ gym to resemble.
To begin this gargantuan task I interviewed a physical education teacher to get her opinion on what she would like to improve about the first floor gym. Appreciatively, she had much to say about our physical education center. Ms. Maureen Malone expressed the need for more basketball hoops attached to the wall (not the mobile ones), padding on the walls to protect kids who have in the past come into contact with the walls at full force and retained injuries, and a retractable divider so the gym could be split into two sections. Ms. Malone, along with numerous other students, also expressed the severe conundrums with the overhead indoor track. It needs to be widened so children to do not fall off the balcony. In addition the floor needs to be resurfaced and another set of retractable pull out bleachers is need on the opposite, windowless wall. Also, the lighting would need work and the storage closet needs to be widened. I think the walls are high enough to add a staircase and another level into the storage closet so that there can be an office and more storage space. Finally, Ms. Malone and I came up with the idea of extending the gym over the parking lot and so that the parking lot is underground and there is even more gym space. While many of her ideas were in harmony with mine, I enjoyed getting her insight on the matter and being introduced to how severe the need for renovation of the 1st floor gym was to the physical education staff.
Numerous other schools have attributes that Ms. Malone requested for the 1st floor gym. Images of such attributes will be located in the pictures below. There are also pictures of the existing gym that portrays how narrow the track is, and also how small the storage closet is. Padding on the walls would serve as a safety implement that gyms in other schools have already installed. Indeed there is much to be done on the 1st floor gym.