Bella, Bella

Today's boat is from the Higher Geography class at Bellahouston Academy, Glasgow.

The course includes a unit on industrial geography in which pupils investigate how concentrations of manufacturing and other economic activities change spatially over time, and the case studies must be from within the European Union.

In many schools, because of available resources, that has often meant investigating either South Wales or the Ruhr. With George Wyllie's Paper Boat and Straw Locomotive providing an interesting starting point, that's about to change at Bellahouston, where the case study will now be Glasgow. Next week, pupils will be looking at the reasons for and the implications of industrial change on Clydeside.

Appropriately, the class chose to make its boat for the exhibition out of an Ordnance Survey map of the city.

Scale:1:2500
Plan NS 6063
Edition of 1954

It's also been a great opportunity to link to other organisations in Glasgow and the school is going to be working with Fairfields and Govan Cross Regeneration.

We've also be investigating linking with the Scottish Maritime Museum in Dumbarton where George tested his Paper Boat at the Denny Tank, and with the Titan Crane in Clydebank and, of course, the Riverside Museum.

Online, an interesting page was also found by a man whose grandfathers both worked in shipbuilding, And then there were four, with memories of the Titan cranes which once dominated the industrial landscape.

So, lots of research going on and more to be done as the Higher class investigates industrial change within the area encompassed by the map with which the pupils made their paper boat, the Bella.