HR: 1400h
AN: ED73B-07    [Abstracts]
TI: Monuments and Memorials: Geoscience and the Historic Record
AU: * Williams, E
EM: ewilliams@sd43.bc.ca
AF: Riverside Secondary School, 2215 Reeve Street, Port Coquitlam, BC V3C 6K8, Canada
AU: Smith, B L
EM: emmalou@telus.net
AF: Wellspring Communications, #27 11737 236th Street, Maple Ridge, BC V4R 2E5, Canada
AB: Many communities have a cemetery, war memorial, public sculpture or old historic buildings that are an important part of the historic record of that community. Such monuments celebrate achievements, commemorate people who died serving their country, or a prominent former member of the local community. Monuments and memorials can trace the histiry of settlement within a community. After a number of years researching cemeteries and memorials, primarily in western Canada my research partner, a historian, and I, a geoscience educator,have documented many monuments and memorials that are succumbing to basic weathering processes. Original design choices can be dictated by cost, material availability, access to transportation and emotions. Climate, type of material, construction methods, technology used and long-term maintenance can all have significant impacts on the sustainability of that material record. Over the last five years we have given many lectures and workshops on the nature of cemeteries to family historians, historical societies and classroom educators. These workshops and lectures focus on developing a better ommunity understanding of the fragility of the record. Field trips by students of all ages can contextualize both geology and history. Seeing local monumanets can facilitate the development of a sense of time and place as well as an appreciation of the environmental impacts and the longevity of the record. For the earth science student documentation of the installation enable comparisons of weathering rates of different materials, the effects of local climate or impacts of pollution. Being able to go to a local memorial or cemetery to compare diffrent structures brings a powerful local context to the learning. However we both have concerns that modern techniques that enable the creation of more elaborate memorials are actually setting the stage for more rapid deterioration. I will illustrate a cross section of our reseacrh and the impact it has had on awareness in our local community.
DE: 0800 EDUCATION
DE: 0805 Elementary and secondary education
DE: 0815 Informal education
SC: Education and Human Resources [ED]
MN: 2009 Joint Assembly