Reinforcing Quantitative Skills with Applied Research on Tombstone-Weathering Rates

Mathophobic students' perspectives on quantitative material in the undergraduate geography curriculum

“…These tasks require hypothesis development, data collection, data processing, uncertainty analysis and hypothesis testing. This finding also suggests that project-based approaches such as those put forward by Gatrell and Bailey (1996), Lindquist and Hammel (1998), Nelson and Corbett (2000) and Roberts (2000), amongst many others, are beneficial. On reflection, this appears to clash with the need for worked examples and practice exercises mentioned above.…”

Professor Geikie’s 1880 paper, ‘Rock-weathering, as illustrated in Edinburgh Churchyards’, inProceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Vol. 10, pages 518–532: Contribution to weathering and cross-disciplinary necrogeography within physical geography

“…André and Phalip, 2010; McNeill, 1999; Schellewald et al, 2013). Roberts (2000), for instance, referred to it as the first published scientific paper on the weathering rates of headstones, and used it as a basis to frame the advantages of doing this type of research: accessibility in all seasons; datability; measurable change within a century; creating a large dataset comprising hundreds of measurements; published research; to quantitatively inform weathering research; and the low cost associated with doing such research. Geikie (1880) was recently cited by Inkpen (2013), alongside the work of Goodchild (1890) that examined headstones at Kirkby Stephen churchyard in Cumbria, as early research linking decay form and rates in marble and sandstone gravestones and buildings in association with atmospheric pollution in Edinburgh.…”