Changing a Fieldtrip from the old A-level to the new AS-level

Jon Clarke, Cannock Chase High School November 2000.

With thanks to Jonathan Walker at Newton House Field centre in Whitby

Like many other people I found myself sat at a meeting by EDEXCEL looking at a new draft specification and thinking how can I fit the fieldtrip that I have now and is very successful into the new specification. I had used a field centre in Whitby for several years and its purpose being to teach the students skills that they could use for their individual studies and give clear examples that could be used in their exams. I wanted my AS students to complete the same types of days but I wanted them to also complete their fieldwork at the same time.
Figure 1.1 Newton House field centre

Planning the itinerary:
Using the days that I had completed for several years I tried to adapt them to the new specification. I had three clear days in mind, a sand dune transect, a coastal management day and an urban day looking at the effects of tourism in two villages one inside the national park and one outside. An issue at all times was to be able to collect enough data for the students to write up their fieldwork.

The question of when:
Looking at the AS scheme it seemed to be very busy and the fieldwork season being either in the early autumn or in the spring. For me the best plan seemed to be in the autumn and to put all of the AS module tests in the summer this would then give us the autumn term and part of the spring term to focus on the task. Leaving the rest of the spring and summer terms to concentrate on the modular exams. The only problem would be the weather and the need to collect the money before we went. On the weather front no-one could predict but the finance was supported by the Head teacher who agreed that payments could be spread across the autumn term so that all the students could go.

The proposal forms:
On the field trip the previous year I spent much of the time thinking up of possible hypothesis to be tested. The owner and tutor at the centre came into his own at this point and started to collect the secondary sources which would be needed for the studies. I planned the proposals early and submitted them to EDEXCEL along with a local footpath study just in case there was any student missing the fieldtrip for any reason.
(see attached forms)

The field trip itself:
On the 30th October, yes, that was during the flooding the flooding that affected the country in so many ways. 20 students and three staff set off for Whitby to Newton House Field Centre at Falling Foss. I was very concerned due to the weather of the last few weeks but I was proved to be worrying without cause, the first day was a clear blue sky with only a few clouds. The scene was set and the students understood that they needed to complete all of the work on all of the days and choose what to write up on the Friday. We headed towards Sandsend Ness to the north of Whitby for our first day. We then carried out a transect of the beach at 5 sites and also looked at the wave height and frequency and also the angle and height of the cliff. The area provides examples of many different types of coastal management techniques and allows the students to easily understand the effectiveness of the different techniques

Figure 1.2 Beach profiles on the raised beach at Sandsend

Figure 1.3 1970s Sea defences at Sandsend

The students could see a progression of different types of management techniques and were able to map the land use behind the management techniques and look at their effectiveness.

Figure 1.4 Old style management techniques and tried and tested profiling techniques

The evenings were spent explaining how the day could be written up if they chose to pick that day, thy also had an exercise to brainstorm some possible hypothesis. We had also taken with us three laptops and stand alone computer and digital camera. Each evening the students would enter their results onto a spreadsheet in Excel. This would then make sure that all data could be combined and checked for any mistakes.

The second day was spent at Redcar at Coatham sands. The focus of the day was to investigate the sand dune ecosystem and compare a primary succession with a secondary succession where a pipeline had been placed through the dunes and the dunes then re-habilitated. Jonothan had spent months gathering photographs of the area and the re-construction plan by the gas pipeline company along with the shoreline management plan for the whole coastline. The day gathered a huge amount of data and it became clear that it was easy to put together a series of different hypothesis.

Figure 1.5 Sand dune transects at Coatham Sands

Figure 1.6 Groups at work on Coatham sands with added silly hat competition

The third and final day was spent investigating the impacts of tourism on two villages on the North Yorkshire Moors, the first being Goathland made famous in recent times by the television series “Heartbeat”. Goathland is within the North Yorkshire Moors National Park and subject to its regulations, the second village was Slieghts which is just outside the National Park boundary. The students conducted land use surveys and impact assessments on both sites as well as conducting questionnaires and tax disk surveys on cars. The later part of the afternoon was spent in Whitby so that students could visit the tourist information office to gain resources and then have a quick look around Whitby.

Figure 1.7 Goathland shop aka Aidensfield stores from the Heartbeat series.

Figure 1.8 Whitby harbour and the improved defence scheme below the Abbey

What went well:
The students were all given a guidelines booklet before the fieldtrip which was very useful. The mix of different days and the idea that thy were not allowed to choose the one that they were going to write up until the Friday meant that all the data was collected well and students gained knowledge for their examination modules. The use of ICT in handling the data from the start made the collection of data fields for the whole group easy, digital photographs have also aided the process of writing up. The students have also found this exercise very useful in the collection of key skills and easy to certify as the evidence is clear and well sign posted.

What went wrong:
A fuel shortage caused by panic buying delayed us a little. The floods in the York area also caused a few problems and the blizzard on the way back from the evening bowling in Scarborough caused some concern to the drivers.

How will it be changed for the 2001-2002 cohort:

We aim to include more use of ICT by using palm pilots so that data is loaded onto spreadsheets faster and time is not spent typing in data in the evening. We also need a computer with a read-write cd-rom to load the photographs onto as this year it took 14 floppy disks. I think that I would also like to spend more time on the Friday writing the GeogB2 forms and look again at the guidance booklet to make it clearer about the tasks that will be performed.

Figure 1.9 A sunny autumn day on Goathland village green

This page last updated 05 December 2000