By Mrs McPhail (Geography Teacher)
Fieldwork is a compulsory part of A Level and IB Geography courses, and together the two groups joined forces and boarded the minibus to the Yorkshire Wolds on Friday 15th March. With Mr Thurston at the wheel and myself navigating, we made it to the Cranedale Centre in the small village of Kirby Grindalythe in time for a tour of the centre and lunch.
The first afternoon was spent at Flamborough Head, the spectacular chalk coastline on the East coast. Here, the features often only learnt about in textbooks immediately came to life, and as both the IB and A Level courses include coasts as a key theme, it was extremely valuable to have our outside classroom literally on the beach. There really is nothing to beat seeing and touching a landform like a wave-cut platform or seeing the impact that seaweed has in terms of biological weathering.
On Saturday, we headed to Scarborough on what was a beautiful sunny day. Many other people had the same idea, but it was just the BGS Geographers who were there to undertake various surveys to discover what sort of place Scarborough is. In order to collect qualitative data, the students filled in non-participant surveys, recorded their emotions at different places, and looked at deprivation. This will form a key case study for the examinations, and the methods of data collection have hopefully inspired the geographers as they prepare for their NEAs and IAs.
On the final day, we got to experience the benefits of waterproof clothing as we completed fieldwork near the centre, studying, of all things, the microclimate! The tuition at Cranedale is excellent, and once again, the students found that they left with so many ideas and, most importantly, key information embedded in their heads. We always leave Cranedale full of food as well, and this visit was no exception.
Izzy (Lower Sixth) said: “I really enjoyed our trip to the Cranedale Centre in Yorkshire. It was a fantastic opportunity to explore both the human and physical sides of our A Level course. We spent a day collecting data in Scarborough, a seaside town in Yorkshire. It was nice to get a real feel of the place and the very contrasting areas, (and also a great opportunity for collecting some data on the local fish and chips). It is always a different experience seeing the processes we study outside of the classroom as it is never quite what happens in a textbook and it was a very informative and interesting experience.”
Read the full student reflections here.
View photos from the trip here.
