On Wednesday 20th June, the LVI (Year 12) geographers travelled to Dartmoor to conduct their fieldwork investigation as part of their non-examined assessments which make up 20% of their A Level.
"Everyone chose to do investigations either focusing on the human or physical part of the course and we have projects ranging from looking at the variation in quality of life in different settlements, to examining the relationship between land use and the soil and atmospheric carbon stores. Our projects require us to use geolocated data so most created a survey where they could link the data that they found or a questionnaire to a location. This trip was not only an opportunity to collect the data required for our projects but it was also a chance to learn different fieldwork techniques and use equipment we hadn’t come across before. Due to the amount of different projects, people were able to learn how to use equipment such as infiltrometers, flowmeters, and CO2 meters or conduct interviews in Exeter, Tavistock, North Bovey and Moretonhampstead.
On our final day we went to Boscastle to assess flood management techniques and to look at high risk areas, which linked to a topic in physical geography where we look at the water cycle. We went to Tintagel to do investigations linked to our human geography course and explored what makes a place by conducting a place check which looked at the environment, how safe the place was and many other factors. Afterwards, we visited Haytor to further our skill set by measuring crystal sizes in the rock and examining faults to create a picture of the geological history of the formation."
Bella (Year 12)