Weather walks, weather talks: exploring popular climate histories and futures

With the additional resources we propose to undertake the following activities:
Extension to contract for Dr Lucy Veale, PDRA for 4 months part time (50%). Dr Veale's continued appointment will enable the following activities to be administered and accomplished.
Field-based testing of the 'Weather Walks' mobile phone application: The technical work carried out during the existing project has been experimental in nature. Extra time and a modest amount of funding would allow us to expand the testing of the application from our own small 'on site' and office-based tests to a larger multi user study in the field. The field testing group is likely to be recruited from local membership of the Royal Geographical Society- with the Institute of British Geographers (RGS-IBG) and/ or members of amateur meteorology and enthusiast groups such as Climatological Observers Link (COL), an existing community of amateur weather observers (with whom Endfield and Veale have links through previous project work). The test would be publicised through the media channels of partner organisations the Royal Meteorological Society and the RGS-IBG, and would be designed to hold value for the 'Discovering Britain' initiative of the RGS-IBG in exploring the potential for a mobile phone application to be rolled out across the project, covering walks nationwide. The team are also looking into whether it may be possible for our app to be made available for free download from the app store.
Preparation of papers and presentations for key conference presentations: As the project has progressed we have begun to explore issues relating to the translation of archival materials into digital forms. This is a particularly innovative arena which would lend itself to academic papers and conference presentations. A paper would also be presented at the RGS-IBG Annual Conference in 2013, as part of a session that Georgina Endfield, Lucy Veale and Gary Priestnall would organise in association with Dr Jenny Lunn ('Discovering Britain' Project Manager).
Workshop: A one day 'Talking Weather' pre RGS-IBG conference workshop is proposed, for the Summer / Autumn of 2013. The intention would be to discuss the use of different methodologies and approaches to explore weather memories and experiences. Together, the two experiments adopted in the original proposal make use of archival records, personal reflections, and experiences recorded through oral histories and digital media sources. The purpose would be to discuss these approaches with representatives of academic and non-academic communities, meteorological organisations, members of the public involved in the 'weather talks and weather walk', professional meteorologists, students and researchers (15-20 people in total). The workshop would also be timely, marking as it does 60 years since Gordon Manley, the focus of the Weather walk, first published the longest historical temperature series based directly on thermometer readings, thee Central England Temperature series, in 1953.
Key Milestones
Activities would begin in February 2013 as a direct continuation of the current project. The field-test of the mobile phone application would take place in early spring to take advantage of improving weather and to allow the greatest time possible for refining the application.
The RGS-IBG conference will take place in London between 28-30th August 2013, but the organisation of the session will begin in late winter/ early spring while the PDRA is employed on the project. The session will be framed to fit the conference theme of 'New Geographical Frontiers'. The CHI Conference takes place in late April 2014 (just outside the specified 'end date') although the abstract of the paper will be prepared at the close of the project to be ready for an October 2013 submission.
The "Talking Weather" methods workshop would be held in summer 2013 as a pre-RGS-IBG conference. Preparations for this need to be completed by Spring 2013.
Added Value to Current Project
The existing project will (by its completion in February 2013), have produced a guided audio walk around the Great Dun Fell area of the North Pennines with an accompanying mobile phone application in prototype format. Extra resources would enable the coordination of further testing (by an independent user group) and development of this application into an app that could be freely available to download from the android app store. The roll out of this app to the other 'Discovering Britain' walks would also be explored with RGS-IBG. Preparation of conference papers for both geography and computer-science conferences would enable the project seem to distribute the research more widely in academic circles, whilst also refining written papers based on the research completed. The session on 'Discovering Britain' would bring together authors of a number of the walks to share experiences and discuss ideas for future use. The pre conference workshop at the RGS-IBG would enable us to engage more members of the public in the research project, involving them in the memory bank and furthering public understanding of meteorology.