On Thursday 6th and Friday 7th October the Lower 6 Geographers visited South Devon as part of their A-Level compulsory fieldwork and they managed to cover a lot of Geography over the two days. Firstly, they visited Totnes which is a town students are learning about in Diverse Places and Globalisation. It's a fiercely independent town with a unique sense of identity. Here the girls practiced collecting primary data, including using the Survey123 App to see how they could map their data and use GIS to present data in different ways. They then headed off to Riverford Organic Farm, where they enjoyed a delicious lunch and had a tour of the Field Kitchen Garden and some of the business premises. Geographers learnt about the impact Riverford had on the local economy and how it has established itself into a sustainable business. In the evening pupils headed off to Slapton Ley Field Study Centre where they settled into their rooms, and had some downtime, before meeting in the classroom and working on some follow-up work on the data that had been collected during the day.
Day two was all about Coast Landscapes and the physical topics in the specification. After breakfast, and a brief classroom session, pupils were dropped off at Start Point and spent the day walking a long part of the South West Coastal Path. This gave students the opportunity to walk along a beautiful part of Britain's coast, enjoy the scenery and see first-hand the processes, landforms and management techniques they had been learning about in the classroom. They practiced collecting data in a number of other ways and evaluated all of the techniques, whilst also sampling some excellent chips and ice creams during the day! During the walk pupils also learnt about the history of this coastline and managed to piece together some important historical events that have impacted how this coastline is managed. On reaching Torcross, girls also came across a very friendly seal and Dr Jolly also saw a dolphin jump out of the water. The later part of the day was focused on some more follow-up work and analysing some data using statistical tests. Throughout the two days the geographers had lots of opportunities to discuss how they could apply these ideas to their own Independent Investigation. It has given them lots of inspiration to come up with their own ideas.
The group had a wonderful couple of days with perfect fieldwork weather. Having not been able to get out as much over the past few years, students have certainly appreciated the value of fieldwork and sampled some excellent British cuisine along the way!
Thanks go to Mrs Milward for her organisation and Dr Jolly for accompanying the students.
