It's a friendly place but its residents are having a few legal issues...

Why don't you try and help them out? Each of the buildings on the map has its own story and clicking reveals their residents' problems, sample exam-type questions, and advice and videos discussing the land law principles involved.

There's Wesley the musician who lodges with the Fineberg family. He paid into building an annex for himself, but now his landlords want to sell up. He thinks he might have a part claim to the property. Is that possible or will he have to move out?

There's Sharmin the florist, whose brother hid their family's financial difficulties from her and now the bank wants to foreclose. Can you reassure her she won't lose her place?

And there's Isla who lives in the red cottage. She had an affair with her brother's girlfriend and when he died he left their shared property to a charity in his will... but didn't tell Isla. What a to-do!

Coltsfoot Vale is an interactive audio-visual map chock-full of juicy land law questions for the undergraduate student!

Come and explore a town created for law students

Coltsfoot was created as a living home for land law problem questions. By illustrating, narrating and discussing the sort of legal disputes and issues that can arise in this area of law, we hoped to provide a more relatable context for what could otherwise be quite dry topics. In this way we believe our town helps students learn and memorise more effectively.

Our interactive map was one of many projects commissioned for the TLDR Legal Gallery, a website dedicated to alternative modalities of teaching and communicating law - especially through the visual arts. If you're interested in learning more about it, the TLDR site features this article discussing the philosophy and creation of Coltsfoot Vale. There is also a technical design article, detailing the technical challenges we faced.

The town is ever evolving and we are continually adding new content and features to it to help it come alive. Currently only some of the buildings in Coltsfoot have stories and characters attached to them. If you wanted to get involved in helping it grow, we'd love to hear from you. We always need ideas, stories, questions and help making videos! You can find our contact details through the TLDR Contact page.

Developer's Corner

We're now providing the open-source code for building your own learning maps!

There is a code repository on github that houses our generic JavaScript Learning Map project.

If you're interested in the technical challenges and pedagogical implications, you might be interested in our article Coltsfoot Vale: Design & Development. It contains a lot of additional insight into how the project was commissioned, built and has evolved.

The project is in active development and we have many plans for its continued improvement. We'd be interested in your input - either technical or to hear about your teaching needs.