Hands-on visit aids urban and rural fieldwork

Year 11 geographers spent two days in the Midlands looking at the regeneration of Birmingham and collecting data of a river to meet the GCSE specifications of completing one physical and one human geography fieldwork enquiry

Anna (11I) preferred the day spent in the city. “The Birmingham and Ash Brook trip was something many of us geography students had been excited about since the beginning of the year,” she said “My favourite day of our trip was the first day, which involved visiting Birmingham city centre

“Here, we carried out environmental quality surveys before having a lunch break, and then started our public perception survey

“This involved us interviewing members of the public on their opinions of the areas we had visited Although we did get some rejections, which did hurt our egos a little, we carried on asking, resulting in some interesting conversations which we recorded.

“Once we had completed all 30 interviews, we were allowed free time before returning to the coach with our new-found ‘friend’, a

Thomas the Tank Engine balloon

“We then headed to the field centre to stay the night.”

Diya (11M) was a fan of Day Two, where students completed river work.

She said: “The second day consisted of river fieldwork, where we firstly completed an introduction and plan to our investigation in a classroom, before making it to Ash Brook so that we could start the investigation

“We completed eight samples at different stages of the river’s course, measuring the velocity, depth, and width at each stage.

“There was some adverse weather rain and wind on the day meaning river levels were slightly higher than usual but fortunately no-one fell in, and we were able to successfully collect data for the samples

“This was definitely my favourite day because, apart from a few missing corks taken away by the river’s current and a pond in my wellies, it was an enjoyable day where we could experience first-hand how the river’s characteristics changed over its course ”