Changes in a landscape

Image by Flickr user Gee Bee under Creative Commons license

Imagine you look out of your window one morning and notice that the view you have been familiar with for so long has now changed because something has been added / been removed.

This sort of thing happens a lot, but it's always a shock when it's outside your own window.

The Trinity Centre Multi storey car park has been a part of the Newcastle skyline for decades.

It became famous for a scene in the film "Get Carter", with Michael Caine.

Today is the day when the process of demolition starts, and a useful article, with that famous scene was produced by the Daily Mail.

There's an interesting quote from the architect of the building: Owen Luder, who said that Gateshead was "losing its front teeth". As parents know, when your children lose their milk front teeth there's a bit of a shock for a few weeks but then they grow up and looking back at old photos a few years later you think "did they really look like that ?"

In the "Mission:Explore" book there's reference to topocide: the factors which help to "kill" a place...

How does the removal of familiar buildings like this affect a place ??

Comments

Making Space for Sand

Making Space for Sand is a project I was made aware of recently. The ‘Building Community Resilience on a Dynamic Coastline by Making Space for Sand’ project (also known as Making Space for Sand or MS4S) is one of 25 national projects funded by DEFRA as part of the £200 million Flood and Coastal Innovation Programme (FCRIP). The programme will drive innovation in flood and coastal resilience and adaptation to a changing climate. The project website has an excellent section outlining the formation of Sand Dunes, particularly within the located context of Cornwall. Sand Dunes are an important part of the coastal defences in the locations where they are found. I am particularly familiar with the dunes on the North Norfolk Coast at places like Holkham. I've previously carried out fieldwork on those dunes with both GCSE and 'A' level students, and also Atkins has provided GIS support and created some visualisations of future landscapes.

Landscape in a Box - more student examples

Thanks to Jack Marsh for sending me some examples of 'landscapes in a box '. Landscapes in a box is one of the ideas that seems to have gone down the best of the things that I've shared over the years. The basic idea is to create a landscape within a box, perhaps a burger box (but could also be a shoe box) This was featured in 'Teaching Geography' in 2009. Jack used the activity with his groups, and has sent me three excellent images of contrasting images from the students: an Antarctic scene, New York's Central Park, and Paris... Outstanding work !! If you've used Landscape in a Box, why not share your students' work too...

Explore the world with the Go Jetters

Really useful post and resource for those teaching Primary Geography . A new set of characters called the Go Jetters who teach young people about key geographical ideas. Geography helps children to make sense of their world. Very young children are naturally curious, and they love to actively explore the world around them, noticing all kinds of detail. That’s why they need to develop geographical vocabulary like the names of places, people and things, and the words needed to describe and locate them. It helps to think of children as little geographers – they each have their own world of private geographies - the places they name for themselves with meanings that only they understand: the dens where they hide out with their friends, special meeting places in the school playground. Whether they’re playing in the back garden, or splashing through a muddy puddle on the way to school, children are intrepid explorers making new (to them) discoveries about the world every sing...

"Look at it this way"

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