From the Geography Department

FROM THE GEOGRAPHY DEPT

Year 12 Geography Field Trip to Snowdonia

“We’ve actually got here!” Those were Miss Lunney’s words of amazement and relief on arriving at the Field Studies Centre near Betws-y-Coed on Monday. Having firstly postponed then cancelled the 2020 trip for the current Year 13, then having to postpone the Year 12 trip by a week it was a massive achievement!

This year the field course was slightly different to usual, with Covid protocols in Wales more strict than in England, not only did we have the entire centre to ourselves but each student had their own bedroom, toilet and shower - the height of luxury on a school trip! It was though still 5 days of intense work with classroom lessons after dinner not finishing until 8pm!

Upon arrival, we went into the local town Betws-y-Coed. Students started to practice different data collection methods, including a survey about different smells —finishing our data collection by enjoying a delicious ice cream. On the second day, we went to Cwm Idwal, a relic glacial environment, where we looked for signs of erosion from a glacier such as striations, aretes, Ushaped valley and roche moutonnees. The drive in the minibus to the roche moutonee was a tiny winding road with a steep drop to the right! Experienced driver Miss Lunney had no issues, but Miss Tatton was relieved to reach the end!

Tuesday was also a special day because it was Rafeek’s birthday, so the Geography teachers couldn’t let it pass without some singing, a cake and candles all before the (reasonably) important first semi-final of the football!

On Wednesday, we headed to Llanberis to look at the impacts of rebranding from a slate mining village to a centre of adventure activities. Unfortunately, the weather was not on our side, torrential downpours left us extremely wet, but they did not dampen our spirits or ruin the amazing views of the lake. In the slate museum the students learnt the history of slate mining and were very impressed by the still operational water wheel.

FROM THE GEOGRAPHY DEPT

We managed to shorten our Wednesday evening lesson slightly as there was a rather important football match on the TV that everyone was apparently keen to watch! The centre staff said that at certain points it sounded like the roof might come off with the amount of cheering and yelling that emerged from the TV room! There was definitely a jubilant air amongst staff and students after the match and bedtime was a lot later than Miss Lunney would have liked!

On Thursday it was over to the pupils to create their own investigation questions, some choosing to investigate the glacial landforms while some wanted to look at rebranding in Llanberis. The rest of the students chose to create titles from a mix of topics within Geography from the environmental impact of Covid-19 to assessing flood management in Berkshire. They then all headed back out again either to collect their coursework data or conduct a pilot study to trial the data collection methods they intended to use.

Thursday evening was awards night, with Miss Howard and Miss Tatton creating much laughter as they awarded students with edible prizes for various achievements including “the most forgetful/biggest loser”, “the best waterproofed”, “the most geographically curious” and “best human/physical geographer”.

Friday saw the opportunity for students to finalise their planning and further data collection at Cwm Idwal or Llanberis, with Lewis deciding to be the most adventurous and head to the coast to investigate the glacial deposits in the cliffs opposite Anglesey.

Throughout the week the students were fantastic, with the centre staff praising them on their politeness and behaviour around the site. The tutors and Geography teachers were also incredibly impressed with the knowledge they demonstrated in the classroom sessions. This field trip has helped them to develop their skills in collecting different types of data, researching topics and processing data so that they are now hopefully fully equipped to start researching and writing up their independent investigations this summer.