Sunday, May 25, 2014

Virtual tours of the Gaywood River valley

If you're after a tour with a hydrological / ecosystems services focus, check out these tours made for a rivers project close to where I live in Norfolk, created by UEA.

Dr Amii Darnell, Professor Andrew Lovett and Dr Jenni Turner have created three ‘virtual tours’ that can be viewed in the free Google Earth software and which provide an introduction to the key environmental features of the Gaywood Valley east of King’s Lynn in Norfolk. The tours have been created as part of the Sustainable Urban Fringes (SURF) initiative which brings together partners from five European countries in a number of projects to enhance the value of nearby rural areas for urban communities (www.sustainablefringes.eu). In the case of King’s Lynn one objective was to encourage local people to explore the valley and find out more about its history and wildlife.  The virtual tours have been produced to provide background information in an easily accessible form and to highlight sites that can be visited. Teaching materials are also being developed so that the tours can be used in local schools.The tours were constructed as sets of text, photos and map information that can be opened in Google Earth, provide instructions to guide the viewer to different landscape features and then display additional information about them (including links to websites). Each tour has a different theme, the first supplying a general introduction to the area, the second focusing on geology and past climates, and the third including details of possible walks and sites to visit.

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