The Crystal
The Crystal is a sustainable cities initiative by Siemens and home to the world's largest exhibition focused on urban sustainability. Siemens have created a series of project-based activities (aimed at key stage three) that reflect the themes explored in the Crystal exhibition and encourage students to challenge and change the way they think about our cities now and for future generations. The Crystal Exhibition is situated in Royal Victoria Docks, East London, and is divided into three distinct areas, each giving a different perspective:
- The Mega Zone (zones 1-3) - presents a global perspective. It looks at some of the mega-trends and takes a global view of the challenges and opportunities facing the world’s cities today. This is based on three large scale changes taking place in cities everywhere: climate change, demographic change and urbanisation.
- The Macro Zones (zones 4-12) - present a city perspective to show possible solutions to key sustainability issues, all of which are already happening somewhere in the world. They demonstrate how technology, used effectively, can make cities more sustainable.
- The Micro Zone (zone 14) - presents an individual perspective which looks at what sustainable cities of the future could look like and challenges students to decide what they can do to help make the vision happen. Students learn about the major global trends facing our cities today, explore the latest technologies and innovative solutions and relate the challenges and solutions to their everyday environments. They also explore how they can make a real and personal contribution to sustainable living.
The Crystal resources include:
- 'What is the Crystal?' gives details background information about The Crystal.
- An introduction to urban sustainability
- An activity sheet and teacher notes for each zone covering a wide range of topics related to the sustainability of cities. The teachers' notes contain project guidance, extension ideas, curriculum mapping and links to supporting material and websites of interest.
Resources
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The Crystal - A sustainable cities initiatives by Siemens
This document introduces 'The Crystal' building in the Royal Docks, London which is designed to improve knowledge of urban sustainability.
What is Urban Sustainability?
This resource, from Siemens, looks at how a sustainable city should meet the needs of the present without sacrificing the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Urban sustainability is the idea that a city can be organised without excessive reliance on the surrounding countryside and be able to...
Zones 1, 2 and 3: Forces of Change
This Crystal exhibition resource from Siemens introduces the challenges of the future for cities and shows how demographic change, urbanisation and climate change impact all parts of people’s lives – from politics and the economy, to quality of life and the environment. Project 2050 is a research and presentation...
Zone 4: Creating Cities
This Crystal exhibition resource from Siemens shows the multi-faceted decision-making, holistic urban planning and monitoring needed when shaping and running our cities.
Bringing the City Back to Life is a business studies and enterprise project where students are asked to identify empty property or land in...