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Tuesday, 28 February 2012

Bringing the Olympics to Maryland Primary School


It was a busy and exciting week last week, with three people representing the Building Exploratory – Lizzie, Rosie and Evi – delivering six workshops at Maryland Primary School to explore how the Olympics are affecting the school’s area. Students from years 3 and 4 identified changes in their area through time by comparing maps from 1033, a Tudor map and a map from 1777. They also explored changes taking place as a result of the Olympics, and learnt to identify and describe the function, features and design of the Olympic stadiums. 

Students in year 5 took their design skills even further, by designing their own Olympic Stadium, and competing with their classmates to test how strong it was.


 Lizzie said of the workshops:

“The most exciting part for me was when we looked for all the different factories that we could see on a 1893 map of the school’s area and the Olympic Par. The students were so keen to tell me everything they found – including a Candlewax Factory, an Oilskin Works (although they didn’t like finding out what an Oilskin factory was!), a Brush Works and a Paint Factory – conveniently right next door to each other.

There was a lot of giggling when they imagined what their area might have looked, smelt and sounded like with all the industry that they had identified from the map. It was great. I’m confident that they really enjoyed it because at the end of the session I received a ‘Maryland Firework’, when all the students made crackling and banging sounds to say thank you!”

If you would like to book a tailor made Mapping Spaces Shaping Places workshop for your school please contact us on 02077292011.

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