Introducing the Built Environment to Students
Surprisingly, though it affects all of us, the
"built environment" is an understudied topic in
Canadian classrooms. When addressed, it is usually presented
in Art or Art History, occasionally Social Studies and,
infrequently, Math, usually in relation to geometry.
The built environment, however, shapes us now,
in our daily lives, and will certainly have a profound impact
on us in the future. For example, are the public buildings and
institutions that we have created in our city truly accessible
to the disabled? For the elderly? For children? How do we
design better buildings and why have certain architectural
styles been adopted into our conventions of design? Can we
have beauty and accessibility?
How are architectural styles translated
between cultures: for example, the arches of Islamic Africa
and Spain appearing the Gothic cathedrals of Europe? How are
these similarities explained in cultures that appear to have
no ties of communication, such as the pyramid builders of
Egypt and Meso-America? And why do these forms reappear in our
modern design--consider
Edmonton's
City Hall.
The Heritage Community Foundation encourages
projects that explore these issues, especially in relationship
to the architectural heritage of Alberta (which certainly has
impressive ancestors if we count the Egyptian or Meso-American
pyramids as an antecedent to the design). We have funded a
built environment and heritage project at
Strathcona Composite High School that documented, through
photographs, the environment at the Rossdale
Power Plant, the closure
of Eatons, the demolishing of a neighbourhood
grocery and the final days of some of the grain
elevators in Alberta.
Though these projects were larger in scope
than most teachers would try to integrate into their lessons,
the
Foundation
has developed a brief list of resources--mostly from the
United States--to introduce some of these concepts to their
students. The
Foundation,
and its partners, hopes to develop curriculum materials and
resources to support this endeavour, with a Canadian and
Albertan outlook, and encourages interested teachers to
explore the possibility of adding the built environment to
their lessons.
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Resources
Careers
Alberta
Association of Architects: Career Information
Alberta
Occupational Profiles
Human
Resources Development Canada: Job Futures 2000
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Class Plans
American
Architectural Foundation: Learning by Design
Introduction:
Educating Children Through Architecture
The
National (US) Parks program: Teaching With Historic Places
Royal
Australian Institute of Architects: Built Environment
Education
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Organizations
Partners
for Livable Communities
Sustainable
Communities Network
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Reference
Architecture
Through the Ages
Art:
Teaching Resources, prepared by ERIC/CHESS
Cities/Buildings
Database
Unfortunately, this database includes no Canadian images.
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