Aggregates Saturday Schools - 'Earthly Stories'

English Heritage ALSF summaries. 2006/2007

This project was designed to give students from seven partner primary schools the opportunity to participate in a series of Saturday schools that will allow them to learn about the impact of aggregate extraction on everyday life.

There was a strong focus on aspects of the archaeology of these aggregate extraction sites. Working closely with a partner quarry, students have had the opportunity to study the effects of quarrying on the archaeology of sites and also to understand the necessity of the extraction of aggregates. The knowledge and skills obtained were then put to use in the interpretation of a closed quarry on the Churchtown Farm Community Nature Reserve, where the focus was on looking at the industrial archaeology of quarrying.

A major component of the project has been to ensure that the methodology used has the potential to be used at other sites across the United Kingdom. The project is sustainable and it is proposed that the activity will run within the normal cycle of Saturday schools at saltash.net community school in future years.

The final stage of the project has been the production of a set of reports by the project manager and a set of leaflets and thematic trails produced by the students. These results and details of the methodology used will be sent for publication in the newsletter of the Geological Society of London, the journal of the Earth Science Teachers Association and a paper/presentation has be given at the annual conference of the Ussher Society in January 2007.

This page was published on 07/06/2007