OUR A Level Biology students headed to North Norfolk on June 7th, but there was a lot more to the trip than sea air and ice creams!

The young scientists visited Burnham Overy Staithe to carry out various fieldwork assessments and practical experiments.

Year 12 Biology student, Tehilla Nweze, said: “We all had the responsibility of handling proper equipment used in scientific research to identify a plethora of plant species, to approximate the amount of beautiful creatures we believed to have been around us, and to sketch out images of the dunes.

“Using our measuring tapes, we journeyed across the dunes; 10 metres at a time with our partners, sampling and identifying different species seen within our square quadrants and identifying them using our key of different known species normally seen around the dunes, with help from our amazing Head of Biology, Ms Smyth.

“We were then shown how to use point quadrants to estimate the percentage of a species in a given area. Afterwards, Mr Lott demonstrated a series of important techniques such as graph drawing (using the values we acquired from the previous exercise) and mean calculating, which we used to draw our graphs in our activity logs.

“Before our final activity, we all gathered together with the most gorgeous scenery of the beach and sounds of the waves not to mention the fresh air, and ate our lunches. Our final activity was supervised by Ms Mealor, who showed us how to identify whether or not living organisms resided in a given area or not. She described to us that certain patterns seen in an area such as claw prints, feathers and holes in the sand which are normally overlooked, are clear signs that the area was a habitat to living things. We also saw beautiful cows and horses which proved our theory of living things in that area.

“As phenomenal as the whole experience was, I think I speak for everyone when I say that the most memorable part was a game of rounders, organised by the teachers, between the two different Biology sets at the very end of the trip. This was an amazing way to end a long day of hard work and prepare us to go home. What an amazing day it was!”

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