Stone Weathering
Introduction
Created By: Abi Stone
Currently Used By: Abi Stone
Location: Keswick town centre
Instructions
Gather the students and get them onto the coach (or minibus) to transport them to Keswick.
On arrival at the Theatre By The Lake carpark, take a 10 minute briefing (inside the rooms in the Theatre if raining, outside if the weather is fine).
After introductions, start to talk to the students about what they know about geomorphology, weathering and erosion. Get them to flesh out physical, chemical, biological as categories. Consider if there is anything missing (e.g. human damage is often treated in isolation). Ask them if they have thought about the weathering of natural materials that are used as building materials in a built environment, and see where that discussion leads.
Give out the handout which provided background to the project and talk them through the approach you want them to take. It is best to divide groups into subgroups of 3 or 4 and then in the debrief they can compare findings. e.g. (i) instruct them to look for at least 2 building stone types and around 10 locations for each
(ii) explain that the appendix on the handout can be used as a guide but they will have to think about the appearance and type of stone in the guide compared to what they are looking at
(iii) explain they can use the table to record findings and/or make sketches and use photographs
(iv) encourage them to describe as much detail as they can
(v) invite them to consider approaches to quantifying the extent and severity of weathering features
Set them off to find a site and offer a location for them to report back in the first 10 to 15 minutes with any queries or questions. Set them back off to complete the task visiting a number of sites and set a time and place to meet for the debrief.
There is flexibility to run the debrief indoors or outside and flexibility for the format. It can work nicely to
(1) get a spokesperson from each subgroup to describe key observations (and show their photos and sketched)
(2) ask each member of the subgroup to describe an observation
(3) then ask them to talk through: (a) whether observations matched the glossary, (b) what sorts of stone types they think they were looking at (it'll be mostly slates and some red/pink sandstone) and whether there are contrasts between stone types, (b) whether physical, chemical, biological, human damage was most prevalent.
(4) encourage them to reflect on whether building stone decay is a problem here
(5) consider what approaches can be taken to assess changes to stone weathering through time... (maybe frame it as a study for the council that scales up from this recce)
(6) see if any of them have any ideas of where laboratory experiments might be useful in understanding stone weathering (there is then discussions about Environmental Cabinets and simulating diurnal cycles and adding moisture and salts etc. etc. etc.
(7) encourage them to contrast Keswick with their home area
(8) start to discuss who they think should be responsible for maintaining built heritage and protecting it
(9) open out a wider discussion about conservation, or about sense of place, or wherever else the discussion leads to (e.g. in 2019 we got talking about the funds raised to rebuild Notre Dam, where they might take a tourist to to look at built heritage from their home area)
Equipment
Each student should have:
- Clipboard
- Pen or Pencil
- Handout
You can offer rulers and calipers if they want to start quantifying the size of features
Staff require:
- A copy of the handout
