Taking photographs, doing drawings, arranging collages, making maps and plans, building constructions, talking and listening, reading and writing – all help children to sort out their experience and to think about their encounters with a place.
The first challenge is to describe the study area and identify key characteristics that give it a particular personality – a sense of place. The ideas discovered on the streetwork session can be developed further in classwork. Many subjects can be involved, exploring
relationships between people and their environment.
Through art and design, pupils can explore the forms of the buildings, the textures of the materials, the nature of the spaces or the relationship between built form and natural form.
Through learning about the history and geography of an area, children can understand more about its development.
Design and technology provides opportunities not only for thinking about what things look like, but also how they work. It enables children to explore how things might be changed and improved.
Learners develop their use of language through writing reports, stories and poems. They also hone their skills in speaking through discussion and argument. There are lots of possibilities for number work in measurement, surveys and graphs.
All this will contribute to education for sustainability and citizenship. Most importantly, it will develop a sense of cultural identity, the key consideration at the heart of the wider curriculum.