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.