Young people speak about the landscape

In 1996 schools and members of the Geographical Association in the United kingdom volunteered to collect data for the Land Use-UK mapping project. At the time surveyors were asked to record their views and visions of the landscape. The 1287 responses note the hopes and fears of young people and their observations concerning the most important environmental issues facing the landscape. These data provide a rich and immensely interesting insight into the thinking of young people and highlight what they value most. Furthermore, in the context of current theoretical repositioning of geography in the broad spectrum of other disciplines connected with socially critical theory the data collected in 1996 provides an important empirical base for post-modernist interpretation. Several themes may be identified in the young people's judgements about the environment. These can be categorised broadly as descriptive knowledge, aesthetic ethical, and socio-political Arguably, such themes in the ideas uncovered are not exclusive to the 'new' geographies but find their origins in thoughts of earlier geographers.