Between Monday 26th and Friday 30th January 2009, forty two AS level geographers accompanied by four teachers, spent a week in Snowdonia in North Wales in a residential field centre. The purpose of the trip was to gain vital experience of fieldwork data collection, skills that are essential to prepare the students for a skills based exam paper in the summer.
I really enjoyed the Wales trip. The river day helped me especially understand the different stages of the river, as we walked downstream from the source.
The students spent a day at the small coastal resort of Criccieth, observing sea defences and measuring the beach profile and a day collecting river data, measuring channel characteristics on the nearby River Glaslyn. The third day of data collection was at the seaside town of Porthmadog, where students asked the locals and a few tourists questionnaires about their stay and collected data about the land use of the town.
Overall the trip was very enjoyable. It’s much easier to understand things you are learning about when you can see them. It wasn’t just work, we had fun at night on walks and quizzes!
The weather was relatively kind to us considering Britain’s recent bout of wintery showers. The students and staff all thoroughly enjoyed the week.
Fantastic trip! It was great to see the formations we had learnt about in our geography lessons. The rivers day was the most enjoyable.