Earlier this month, our Year 13 Geographers embarked on a residential trip to Slapton Ley in Devon, with the purpose of carrying out fieldwork and collecting data for their coursework. In this piece, we hear from the participating students about their experience of the trip.
Written by our Year 13 Geography students
On the 8th October we set out on our Geography residential trip. We began by travelling to Totnes. After a long coach journey with entertainment from our coach driver, we were sent off to experiment with various data collection methods. We were particularly interested by the number of independent shops adding to the quirkiness of the town of Totnes. We then continued our onward journey to the FSC Centre in Slapton. After settling into our dorms we were treated to some lovely fish and chips!
On the second day we travelled to the coast in order to learn more about the area and location for our NEA (coursework). We parked up in Beesands and began with a long, fast-paced (courtesy of the FSC instructor Greg) coastal walk. The views were incredible. We visited South Hallsands, a coastal community destroyed by the waves and learnt of the Trout sisters. Travelling back along the coastline we had lunch at Beesands and watched a wedding in which the bride arrived by tractor! After a stop at Torcross to explore the impacts of the coastal management strategies we walked back to the FSC Centre and spent a long evening deciding our NEA projects, ready for data collection to commence the next day!
Day 3 was our coastal data collection day. We split into groups exploring the area while collecting data. Starting at the coastal community of Beesands (where we had seen the wedding the day before) we collected data using a variety of data collection techniques. We conducted beach profiles, sediment characteristic measurements and flood risk surveys. After lunch we climbed over the headland, stopping to see the beautiful view from the top. We then went to Torcross to collect some more data to allow for a comparison of different coastal locations. After an ice cream and a walk back to Slapton along the Ley we gathered to watch the beautiful sunset over the Devonshire countryside and later went on a stargazing walk around FSC Centre.
On our penultimate day we travelled to Totnes to collect some more data for human-based coursework topics – an example of this was looking at the Environmental Impacts on Totnes. After a long and tiring day we went back to Slapton and, after some work in the classroom collating our data, we were treated to a quiz night (including a round where we had to wear as many items from the kit list as possible)!
On our final day we worked on statistical testing of our data in the classroom. After a thank you to Greg, Miss Sissons and Mrs Black we packed up our bags and loaded them on to the coach. We arrived home exhausted but having thoroughly enjoyed our Geography fieldtrip weekend!
