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Introductory techniques
Models represent a simplified version of reality.
They can be a useful starting place to compare to reality and assess the success of a place; to assess risk in this context we can think about how walkable a neighbourhood is.
Start by getting students to research the 20 minute neighbourhood model and think about how accessible and walkable their neighbourhood is.
Assessing risk
The aim of this fieldwork is to assess risk through walkability of the local area.
It could be used as a flipped learning technique that is done as homework on the way home from school, or in a lesson as a class.
Pupils are integral in building the survey and using the outline below, they can decide on categories through class research into the Global Street Design Guide pedestrian toolbox.
From this, they can choose relevant categories to score that help them to assess the risks in walking around their local neighbourhood / the walk home from school.
Encourage discussion around the categories supplied below and how they could be improved by using a model or secondary research.
Not Walkable
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Highly Walkable
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Pavements – No pavements |
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| Pavements – Wide, well maintained |
Safety – Highspeed and volumes of traffic |
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| Safety – Low speed and low volumes of traffic |
Road Crossing – Limited crossing opportunities or barriers to crossing |
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| Crossing – Pedestrians have priority over motor vehicles |
Accessibility – narrow pavement, no drop kerbs, etc |
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| Accessibility – tactile paving, lowered kerbs, wide pavements, etc |
Pupils can create a map either digitally or sketch map to show where safety precautions and or mitigation measures could be added in their local area to improve the safety of the walking environment.
For suggestions of what could reduce risk in street planning, pupils can research from the drop-down list in the Global Street design guide’s designing for pedestrians. Pupils could combine this with completing a risk assessment for the area of data collection.
The Geographical Association (GA) has worked closely with the Field Studies Council (FSC) to develop these resources.
