Future Landscapes
Context paper
April 2005
Mary Ulicsak, Futurelab
Sophie Duncan, BBC Secondee
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Future Landscapes context paper (pdf, 160KB)
Introduction
The aim of the Future Landscapes project is to create an interoperable, responsive tool that allows young people (12-14 years old, school Years 7 and 8) to engage with, imagine and discuss ideas about human influences on future landscapes.
It is envisaged that this tool will combine current mapping techniques with existing or emerging visual technologies to allow young people to enter and manipulate different kinds of data in order to explore the influence of humans on the environment. The tool will support existing fieldwork practices in geography by providing learners with the opportunity to easily enter and manipulate field notes such as images (eg digital images or their own drawings) of the landscapes, quantitative (eg population, number of houses etc) and qualitative (eg interview or sound bits from local residents) data. The tool will help learners visualise these changes in a two-dimensional and three-dimensional format.
This document aims to summarise the current state of geography and understanding of mapping techniques within the Key Stage 3 curriculum as it relates to Future Landscapes. It then discusses key research in the area of understanding mapping techniques, the role of two-dimensional and three-dimensional representations, and how it fits in with geographical information systems (GIS) software which is currently the focus of much research. The document concludes with the identification of key research questions based on the existing research in this field.