Numerous young students from Chantry School were led into the great unknown by Mr Bob Allison, ageless geology teacher, on three occasions this week.  School had introduced a new geology course–Geological Detectives–for year 7 (12 years ish) pupils.  The aim of the field trip was to finish off the course by collecting evidence from the local geology to reconstruct the past climatic and environmental conditions. Also how the geology has an impact upon landscapes. Finally, how local geology can determine what the old buildings are made of.   The groups visited the church, Scar cottage, Martley Rock, Penny Hill and The Canyon. On Monday 22nd there were 29 pupils, Tuesday 56 and Thursday 58.

Mike Brooks who created ‘apps’ for the GeoParkWay and has just released one for Martley Rock, went along to introduce the children to this new teaching resource.  Given the apps’ working platform–smart phones and tablets, it was no wonder that the children were immediately able to adapt to them and gain the benefits. Mike used the time to gain useful feedback to improve his designs. The image shows a QR code that take scanners straight to the app shop.  Search for MartleyRocks on your Android or Apple device.

Julie Harrald accompanied the groups on Monday and Tuesday, gathering evidence for the bid she is assembling for the “Voyages in Deep Time” project.  This bid is shortly to be submitted to the Heritage Lottery Fund, developed by the Herefordshire & Worcestershire Earth Heritage Trust.  The crux of the project is the development of apps (for smartphones/tablets) to engage principally, but not exclusively, a younger audience in the deep time heritage of our planet, with a focus on places in the counties of Herefordshire & Worcestershire. One of those sites of course being Martley!  A number of high profile organisations have kindly provided their backing and future support for the project. The aims of the project are summarised as:

Connect people, primarily young people, with the earth heritage of their surroundings and build appreciation that in the very distant past this place, their home, has been forged through many epic changes in environment, life forms and location.  As a means to achieve this, the proposal is to employ mobile device apps for use in the field, in combination with downloadable learning/creative materials, to facilitate individual/group interpretation of past environments which can then be made available to all via a web hosted interactive gallery. To further stimulate interest from the younger participants an app based game will be created which challenges the players to locate evidence of the deep past, whilst pitted against the clock, each other and challenges emerging from the deep time period they are currently ‘walking over’.