KING’S Ely Geographers descended on the North Norfolk coast for an intensive two-day fieldtrip.
The group of 36 Year 11 King’s Ely Senior and King’s Ely International Geography students arrived at their base, Sheringham YHA, before setting off on their rivers study day, which involved planning a fieldwork enquiry into how a river changes along its course, initially investigating the theory and enquiry questions they would need to ask and what fieldwork techniques they could use to measure the river before donning their wellies and heading out to the local River Glaven.
Despite the water being particularly cold, all groups immersed themselves fully into their data collection (not the river fortunately!) and once they had visited both sites, they had procured sound data on the width, depth and sediment size of the river. The students also took the opportunity to visit sites further downstream.
The group followed up back at the YHA with skills and statistical techniques along with evaluation of how well their implementation of the data collection went and how they could be improved for the future. This day provided intense and valuable coverage of the rivers topic content, skills questions experience and also material to answer physical fieldwork questions. The students then worked on sample questions from the exam board, applying the skills and knowledge of the day in a real exam context.
The second day of the trip was spent studying the coast at Overstrand, the site of one of the most significant mass movements along the Norfolk coast in recent years. The students prepared in the classroom again, going over key topic content such as the key processes and terms for the coasts topic and discussing the different options for managing stretches of coastline vulnerable to erosion.
On site, students were able to view the slump site, now regraded and ‘soft-engineered’ alongside the collapsing path where the old High Street used to run. They then went down onto the sea front to investigate, sketch and evaluate the current sea defences and view the coast to the east where protection does not exist and compare the relative rates of erosion from the sea.
Head of Geography at King’s Ely Senior, Helen Melville, said: “The trip was incredibly busy and intense but provided a wealth of valuable knowledge and up-to-date application of this in a case study context for students to use in their exam. It was a pleasure to have the KEI Geographers join us on the trip and integrate themselves seamlessly with the group. Thank you to all staff who put so much into planning and delivering the trip and to students who were a credit to themselves and King’s Ely.”