For the sixth year running our Year 12 Geography students spent a week in April at the YMCA National Centre at Lakeside in the Lake District, as part of their A level Geography course. This year we decided that the course should take place a little later than in previous years because for the past two we have encountered some pretty heavy snow falls. Luckily this time the weather was fine, if not a little chilly at times and the early spring meant that the local vegetation was much more developed than we’ve seen before.
We travelled upto the Lake District on Sunday morning by minibus - a not uneventful experience as one of the minibuses which we had borrowed from another school proved to be less than reliable and had to be coaxed up the M6 by Mr MacWilliams, with a trail of blue smoke behind. Lakeside is run as an activity and management training centre, and whilst they do cater for fieldtrips, we have decided simply to use them as a base for accommodation and food. All the teaching is undertaken by the Geography staff who lead the trip, in this case Lindsey Alexander and myself, ably assisted, as driver and entertainment’s officer, by Niall MacWilliams.
Each day consisted of practical, outdoor, data collection activities undertaken by the students at a variety of locations around the area, with the evenings being used to write up results, analyse the data and prepare for the following day’s activities. There is also some time between the day's activities and the evening's work for the students to enjoy themselves and this year the good weather meant that the basketball court got lots of use.
Over the past six years we have developed an excellent series of activities for the students, which have two overall aims. These are to provide students with, detailed, real life case studies which they can apply in their final exams and to give them experience of using a wide variety of fieldwork data collection techniques and approaches to analysing and presenting their results. The intention of the latter being to prepare them for their own Individual Study, based on an original piece of primary research, for which they have to submit a plan to the Moderator in May and which constitutes 20% of their final A level grade.
Tuesday was an important day as it was spent giving the students exposure to Decision Making, a skill which again is examined in their terminal exam and accounts for 20% of their grade. Presented with an issue about the development of the National Park, the students spent the day visiting a number of locations to collect the necessary data, with which to produce their own report of recommendations. This included visiting Grasmere to carry out a questionnaire of visitors and a survey of shops and services, touring a hill farm in an ESA and a lecture on threats to the National Park by a Ranger at Brockhole National Park Centre.The evening session gave students an opportunity to assess the relative impacts of the threats to the park and produce a report on future developments.
Day three brought a change of emphasis as we travelled to Sandscale Haws on the coast near to Barrow in Furness. This is a huge Nature Reserve of sand dunes, some several thousand years old which are now owned and managed by the National Trust.
Thursday focused on rivers and we spent the day measuring the characteristics of the River Lickle at two points along its length, .
The week was certainly very successful; the group were excellently behaved and extremely hard working and great fun to work with This has been reflected in the fact that all of their proposals for Individual Studies were accepted by the Moderator without change. We returned to Oxford after an excellent week a little more weary than when we had set off, although of course, this could have been put down to suffering numerous singing and break dancing displays from Mr Mac during our stay. I am very sorry that I won’t be around to lead the fieldweek next year, but I know that I am leaving it in very safe hands with Miss Alexander, for whom the wilds of Cumbria will be nothing after her adventures in Uganda.
Andrew Hubbard ( now at Kingsbridge Community School, Kingsbridge, Devon )
On the first day of our fieldweek we stay on site at Lakeside and carry out an investigation into the nature of the woodland ecosystems, in particular looking for change in the vegetation as one moves up the hillside. This was systematically carried out by the students working in groups, collecting data on tree species, height, spacing, soil type and ground cover as they moved along a transect of the hill side. Later in the day we visited Grizedale Forest and as we walked through the area noted the impacts that human activities and management can have on ecosystems. The evening was spent analysing their results from the transect and producing annotated cross sections of the hill side at Lakeside, to show the change and development of the vegetation.
The area forms a major case study for the students, as part of their Humans and Ecosystems module, and they spent a rather wind swept day carrying out detailed transects of the dunes looking at their structure, formation and development as well as surveying the vegetation found upon them. We were very lucky to have the help and advice of the National Trust warden Peter Burton during the day, who is an expert on the area and the rare flora and fauna found there.
one in its upper stage and then a second some miles further down stream, where the river’s valley had flattened and widened. Again this data should prove invaluable to the students as a real life case study and hopefully will be something which, when all else fails, they are able to recall under the stress of exams, because they have visited the site themselves.