Spending time in your local environment is a great learning experience for young people, providing an opportunity to interact and connect with their local area.
Young students engaged in a visit at Eltham Palace © English Heritage
Visiting local buildings and places can support the delivery of the Every Child Matters outcomes, and the Learning Outside the Classroom initiative, as well as helping young people to value and feel proud of where they live and learn.
Bill Dewberry, a teacher at Chingford Foundation School (CFS) in London says that getting out into your local environment is about ‘rekindling something that has been lost in a lot of schools’.
Year 7 students at CFS spend time out of the classroom learning about place and location. During a class project they carry out surveys in their local streets and shopping centres near the school and then use their findings back in the classroom.
Andrew Berry, a teacher at Sawston Village College, used CABE’s ‘Where Will I Live’ resource to look at local streets and neighbourhoods and said, ‘the students really enjoyed working in the local area’. This resource is designed to explore the concept of place by investigating students’ neighbourhoods, looking at housing and defining the importance of design in creating good places to live.
When it comes to the built environment there is no substitute for first hand experience. Taking your class out of the classroom, out of the school grounds and down the street, is one of the best ways to help them learn about the world around them.
Highbury Grove School students outside the Royal Opera House © Michele Turriani
Resources and ideas
Create-a-scape is a creative learning resource that will help you to engage students with their local places and spaces. Through recording sound, images and video and then compiling into a digital map of their local area, students create their own ‘mediascape’.
The software is free and all you need is a hand held computer or potentially a mobile phone. The create-a-scape website provides:
- Clear instructions on how to plan mediascapes.
- A step-by-step guide on how to make a mediascape.
- A library of ready made mediascapes to use in the classroom and out and about.
As a whole class activity, city trails are a great way for students to learn about their neighbourhood and how it has been shaped in the past and present. Students can design their own city trail that focuses on a particular theme or a personal topic of interest. Some ideas could be: the best graffiti in town, the tallest buildings, or find all the green spaces.
The Architecture Centre, Bristol developed a project with the Knowle West Media Centre, Sweet History.
Amy Harrison, education manager at the Architecture Centre, Bristol said, ‘through the Sweet History project the young people learned a great deal about the sensitive historical impact of slavery in their city and its buildings. It was a powerful way of engaging in complex social history and with local heritage built environment.’
Sweet History is an online, interactive city trail of Bristol that explores the impact of sugar and slavery on the local buildings. It was developed by young people in Bristol who chose and investigated the sites for the trail.
Explore the Engaging Places website to find other city trails or walks that you can use with your class.