Taking advantage of our past to inform our future

How to hold up a brick wall

I recently attended the ULearn conference in Christchurch and got to see some amazing feats of post-quake engineering.  It's really incredible what we can do today to ensure the delights of bygone days are not lost for future generations. On the other side, such a conference is focused not on what we did in the past, but what we can do now and potentially in the future.  This blend of desperation to sustain heritage while embracing the need for future focussing technology made me really sit up an think.  These wonderful buildings are part of what makes Christchurch what it is, but without the technology that has evolved from our past disasters (I'm in Napier - we know about such things), this earthquake would have been significantly more serious and lives would have been lost.  As it is, there are sad gaps in the landscape and in family function, but the buildings that were earthquake designed or proofed and families that had disaster plans in place, mostly suffered very little damage.

Christ's College steeple repairs

My question is, what are WE doing to 'earthquake proof' our children so they survive what the world will throw at them?  If we don't play a strong role in this, the cracks will prove to big to plaster over.

Oh, and by the way ... I won an i-pad at the conference.  How cool is that!!!