Urban Regeneration in Action

Our Year 10 Geography students went to London to complete their compulsory GCSE Fieldwork to support their learning for their Paper 3 exam next summer. During the day students were investigating two locations; Canary Wharf and the Olympic Park. To do this, they were answering the enquiry question of, 'to what extent have the regeneration schemes of canary wharf and Olympic park been successful?'. 

Over time, Canary Wharf has transformed from one of the busiest docks in the world to a derelict wasteland to one of the economic global centres. To walk around the area and investigate the change was so interesting for students who got to see some of the most economically important businesses in the world. Students were split into groups of 20-25 and then allowed to be in smaller groups again. They all had their own booklet and spent the day completing environmental quality surveys, pedestrian counts, questionnaires and land use surveys. This allowed them to see whether the site was socially, economically or environmentally successful. 

At lunchtime they travelled to the Lea Valley cycle park and had their lunch in the Olympic Velodrome. They then began their walk around the Olympics Park, where they saw the Media City, West Ham stadium, the Aquatics Centre and the new V&A museum and Sandler's Wells theatre.  Considering the vast beautiful landscape that was created for the 2012 Olympics, most students agreed that Olympic Park was successful environmentally but Canary Wharf was successful socially and economically.