"Look at it this way"

The latest electronic edition of the Ordnance Survey 's MAPPING NEWS is now available on the OS WEBSITE . It features a range of very useful articles on a range of topics. There is also an article called " LOOKING AT LANDSCAPES " which I contributed to the issue, and is well worth reading...

Image by Alan Parkinson: Castle Acre Castle, Norfolk An excellent article in the Times magazine a couple of weeks ago which I have just got round to blogging... It features Bill Bryson interviewing David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown about their policies on the countryside in advance of the General Election... I used a Bill Bryson quote at the start of my book "Look at it this Way" from the speech that he gave when he took over as President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) in June 2007 The Times article begins with this excellent paragraph which would make an excellent discussion piece, or perhaps the script for a video / presentation to be put together by students, along with appropriate images.... Nothing – and I mean, really, absolutely nothing – is more extraordinary in Britain than the beauty of the countryside. Nowhere in the world is there a landscape that has been more intensively utilised – more mined, farmed, quarried, covered with cities ...

I know this is too wide, but want to have the option of playing this (wifi permitting) next week at the GA Conference... After that it's back to business as usual....

The South Downs was designated as a national park yesterday, as I blogged about at the time. Having investigated the blog a little further, I've come across a resource that would be useful for those teaching about LANDSCAPE . Here is how the project is described on the website: ‘Landshapers’ is an oral history project which tells the story of the South Downs through the people who live and work there. A joint undertaking between the South Downs Joint Committee, Natural England and Hampshire County Council, the six audio visual files help explain how this landscape has been, and continues to be, shaped by man. These stories cover a wide range of themes intrinsically linked to the unique landscape we see today, all presented by a variety of local experts and accompanied by evocative and inspiring images of the South Downs. These are impassioned and personal accounts by the narrators based on their own background and experience. The audio files can also be downloaded onto mp3 players ...

The South Downs was officially designated as a National Park yesterday... Check out the LEARNING ZONE with Nibbles the Sheep.... A useful section on PROTECTING THE LANDSCAPE . It includes the very useful LANDSHAPERS audio resource which I shall investigate in more detail and blog about later.....