For the first time in more than 18 months, Oakham School Geographers were able to undertake some fieldwork outside of the ‘classroom’ in preparation for their forthcoming GCSE exams.
Form 5 geographers visited Cambridge and Stratford-upon-Avon to help prepare them for their GCSE Alternative to Coursework paper which they will sit next summer. Prior to their visit, they learnt how to safely plan a trip and create data collection forms. While they were there, they practised a wide variety of human data collection techniques including traffic and pedestrian counts, environmental quality assessments, field sketches, questionnaires and land use transects. Now pupils have returned to lessons they will present some of the data that they have collected and then analyse it to look for trends and anomalies and hopefully attempt to explain these.
Head of Geography Howard Collison said: “Fieldwork is a cornerstone of Geography and we have been looking forward to the day that we were able to get out of the classroom again. Their day in Cambridge has shown them a great deal about how to plan and then carry out human geography fieldwork.”
