A photograph of Speakers' Corner, an event that gathered citizens, architects, urbanists, developers and government officials to The Commons to speak about the importance of flexible and temporary spaces in the creation of cities. Speakers' Corner was part of FESTA 2014 and supported by Athfield Architects.
A photograph of Speakers' Corner, an event that gathered citizens, architects, urbanists, developers and government officials to The Commons to speak about the importance of flexible and temporary spaces in the creation of cities. Speakers' Corner was part of FESTA 2014 and supported by Athfield Architects.
A photograph of a participant in Speakers' Corner. Speakers' Corner was an event that gathered citizens, architects, urbanists, developers and government officials to The Commons to speak about the importance of flexible and temporary spaces in the creation of cities. Speakers' Corner was part of FESTA 2014 and supported by Athfield Architects.
A photograph of people sitting around a table at The Commons during Speakers' Corner, an event that gathered citizens, architects, urbanists, developers and government officials to speak about the importance of flexible and temporary spaces in the creation of cities. Speakers' Corner was part of FESTA 2014 and supported by Athfield Architects.
Blog in which Sarah Miles comments on the post-earthquake reconstruction of Christchurch, critiquing the profit-driven model of private insurance and how it fails to protect citizens in times of disaster. Includes comment on the political situation and some guest posts.
Following the 2010-2011 earthquakes in Canterbury, New Zealand, the University of Canterbury (UC) was faced with the need to respond to major challenges in its teaching and learning environment. With the recognition of education as a key component to the recovery of the Canterbury region, UC developed a plan for the transformation and renewal of the campus. Central to this renewal is human capital – graduates who are distinctly resilient and broadly skilled, owing in part to their living and rebuilding through a disaster. Six desired graduate attributes have been articulated through this process: knowledge and skills of a recognized subject, critical thinking skills, the ability to interpret information from a range of sources, the ability to self-direct learning, cultural competence, and the recognition of global connections through social, ethical, and environmental values. All of these attributes may readily be identified in undergraduate geoscience field education and graduate field-based studies, and this is particularly important to highlight in a climate where the logistical and financial requirements of fieldwork are becoming a barrier to its inclusion in undergraduate curricula. Fieldwork develops discipline-specific knowledge and skills and fosters independent and critical thought. It encourages students to recognize and elaborate upon relevant information, plan ways to solve complicated problems, execute and re-evaluate these plans. These decisions are largely made by the learners, who often direct their own field experience. The latter two key graduate attributes, cultural competence and global recognition of socio-environmental values, have been explicitly addressed in field education elsewhere and there is potential to do so within the New Zealand context. These concepts are inherent to the sense of place of geoscience undergraduates and are particularly important when the field experience is viewed through the lens of landscape heritage. This work highlights the need to understand how geoscience students interact with field places, with unique implications for their cultural and socio-environmental awareness as global citizens, as well as the influence that field pedagogy has on these factors.