Fieldwork Fun for GCSE Geographers in South Wales

It was a busy weekend for the Geography Department as Geography teachers, Ellie Smales and Alex Wallace, and Oliver Staines, Head of Geography, gathered their Year 11 GCSE students and headed for South Wales. The group visited Margam Field Studies Centre, not far from Port Talbot, between Thursday 14th and Saturday 16th March in preparation for the fieldwork questions in their upcoming public examinations.

Oliver was pleased with the progress of the group, commenting: “The students were fabulous throughout and threw themselves into the work, which was intense, with fieldwork and classroom sessions running from 9.00am to 8.30pm on the Friday (with breaks for lunch and dinner) and a similar level on work on both half days as well. The group should now be really well prepared for the examination questions when they are asked to relay and critique their own experiences.”

Margam Park was chosen for its excellent reputation, superb location and top class facilities which offer outstanding opportunities for fieldwork in Geography. Teaching was provided by local experts from the Field Studies Council and tailored to the examination courses by the LP Geography team.
The field trip covered much of the theory that students have studied in the topics from the iGCSE course on river environments and urban environments enabling them to see first-hand the landscapes they have learned about. One of the days was dedicated to a group investigation along the course of the Ogmore River, including measuring changes in the river channel and testing water quality.

“We went on our trip following the wettest February on record, which meant we were concerned the river levels would be too high for us to complete our river study first hand, thankfully at least two of the sites we visited were just low enough for us to go into safely, though the spare clothes students had brought came in handy for one or two who decided to investigate the flow of the river more closely than had been advised!” laughed Oliver.

On the urban field trip day, students mapped land use changes along a transect line through Cardiff and complete environmental quality and bipolar surveys. The evenings and the Saturday session were dedicated to processing the results.

Julia (Year 11) commented, “Collecting primary data instead of just looking at secondary data makes a big difference and you don’t forget that easily. One new thing that I learned that really stuck with me was how to properly draw a field sketch with the important information. There were a lot of fun moments on the field trip from playing jenga and uno in the evenings to petting goats and alpaca. The most fun one related to Geography must be the field work at River Ogmore. We looked at six different sites that were spaced out over the course of the river so that we were able to see the changes of the river, and at two sites we went into the water. At Nant-y-moel Farm and at Nant-y-moel Village we were wearing very fashionable waterproof trousers and wellington boots, which served some people as a footbath! We were measuring velocity, width, depth and also identified bedload shapes as well as their size. I would advise though to roll up your sleeves before you reach for a stone in the river; from personal experience I can say it is quite cold, especially with a wet sleeve!”