As part of our commitment to delivering educational opportunities within our projects, we wanted to engage with schools across Cardiff to undertake a project that looked at the dock feeder canal's role in Cardiff's historical past. This project worked with four schools within the local area and was developed specifically for the project. The pupils undertook workshops to learn about the importance that the dock feeder canal had played in history, its construction and how its reopening would impact the city's future.
We worked with four amazing schools, Saint Marys The Virgin, Saint Cuthberts, Tredegarville and Glan Morfa. Each school was tasked with designing one storyboard based on an assigned topic.
Glan Morfa looked at why the canal was built and needed in Cardiff
Saint Marys The Virgin researched the industrial heritage of the canal
Saint Cuthberts researched the location of the canal in Cardiff
Tredegarville looked at the future of the canal and the role it would play in the city centre
Our educational engagement is always aligned with Wales's new curriculum. This scheme enabled pupils to learn about the areas where they lived whilst including the core curriculum areas of maths, English and science. The pupils learnt about ratios and how to upscale and downscale images. The panels were written by the pupils enabling them to develop their literacy skills. The research undertaken, also helped with their literacy and language skills. As civil engineers, we were keen to provide them with some of the science and engineering that went into the canal's construction and the processes we would be undertaking in its restoration and regeneration. On top of these core curriculum areas, the pupils also gained IT skills through our digital illustration workshops. They developed their artistic and design skills through the creation of the artwork. The project also taught the pupils key skills such as project planning, organisation and time management skills.
The result was a cross-curricular approach to delivering interactive educational projects that resulted in a new educational and visual resource combining STEM, engineering and construction with cartooning, graphic design and illustration that helped to bring the canal from its historical past to how the pupils hope it will be seen and used in the future.
So how did the pupils design their comic strip hoardings?
Well, this is the clever bit, we used a very talented digital artist to undertake real-time, virtual workshops with the pupils during their lessons. The first stage involved the pupils working with the artist to put their ideas down on paper and create their vision board of how they would like to see their comic board displayed. Once they had a finalised design, they then had lessons in digital illustration. They were taught how to use computer illustration packages to take their ideas from paper and bring them to life on a computer.
Once the designs were all transferred and digitalised they were coloured in and brought to life. Below is the final art work from each school.
They were then sent to print and are proudly displayed on our site hoardings on Churchill Way.
In total over 160 pupils were engaged in the project. The feedback has been nothing but positive from both the schools and the pupils. On site, we have met many a proud parent/guardian who was visiting the area to proudly view their child's artwork.
Well done to all the pupils involved. We hope you are as proud of your artwork as we are!
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