Jasmin Chambers (Lower Sixth)

The biology trip last weekend, gave students in the Lower Sixth a better insight into the world of ecology to assist us in investigating our required practical. The area we were residing in, Flatford Mill, Suffolk was rich with ecosystems for a number of plant and animal communities, providing us with a plethora of ideas to form our investigation.

During the first two days, we were entered into an environment full of quadrats and transects, which quantify the relative abundance of organisms in an area. Despite the unfortunate weather not being ideal for a day at the beach on Saturday, we learnt vital information, which would will come in handy when carrying out our independent investigations. We applied our knowledge on various abiotic factors (physical parts of the environment that affect living organisms), which we had become encompassed with during the previous days and worked into the evening planning what we would do the next day.

On the final morning, we headed out into the woodlands, ponds and fields to implement the range of techniques and equipment we had become familiar with in our experiments. Excited at being left to our own devices, we conducted our investigations systematically, randomly or stratified and results were recorded ranging from the abundance of bluebells to lengths of leaves, which we would be researching and writing up once we got back to school. The field trip was undeniably beneficial to all of us, as it not only gave us the chance to explore ecosystems outside of Bedfordshire but it taught us the significance of abiotic factors from light to pH on organisms and their habitats.