As part of the TechFest Week Secondary Schools Programme, the Macaulay Institute in Aberdeen is running workshops at three Aberdeenshire secondary schools next week looking at ‘Conflicts in the Countryside’.

Geography and science students from S3 and S4 classes will participate in the workshops at Mearns Academy, Laurencekirk on 12 September, Alford Academy on 13 September and Ellon Academy on 14 September.

Professor David Miller and Willie Towers, senior researchers at the Macaulay, will discuss with pupils two main issues – native woodlands and wind turbines.

Professor David Miller said: “We will be focusing on changes in Scotland’s landscape, using the Cairngorms as an example of a particularly special landscape, and using native woodlands and wind turbines as examples.

“The emphasis is on interaction between the presenters and the pupils, with opportunities to identify features, or their own homes, on satellite imagery and aerial photographs of the local areas. We hope that the pupils can show us where changes have taken place locally, and participate in a challenge to select the most appropriate locations for woodlands or turbines, and we will help explain why change might have happened and where it can be best suited.”

The schools will also receive copies of computer simulations of ‘fly-throughs’ of the landscape.

The Macaulay Institute is the premier land use research institute in the UK. Two hundred and seventy staff are based at the Macaulay Institute at Craigiebuckler in Aberdeen. The Macaulay Institute aims to be an international leader in research on the use of rural land resources for the benefit of people and the environment and is involved in research across the globe; from Scotland to Chile and China. More about the Macaulay Institute can be found at www.macaulay.ac.uk.

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