Chelmsford County High School for Girls

Subjects

Geography - Fieldwork

One of the Geography Department's strengths is its provision of fieldwork opportunities throughout the school. Not only are these good social occasions, but they provide an invaluable opportunity to learn about the environment at first hand. Team work is an essential element of fieldwork and many life and social skills are enhanced by this experience.

Year 7

Little Waltham, includes a visit to Tiptree Museum (Wilkins & Sons Jams). Involves work on rivers & slopes, a building survey, landscape evaluation, village interviews and traffic count.

Year 8

(a) Natural History Museum: the Ecology exhibition introduces the concepts of ecology and bio-diversity through innovative presentations of natural habitats such as the Rain Forest, Savanna regions, ocean and land habitats.

(b) Presentation by Martin Reed from the "Send a Cow" charity.

Year 9

Chelmer Waterside (Urban Redevelopment), which involves research & talks at the Essex Records Office, and walks & fieldwork exercises around the Chelmer area.

Year 10

A week residential field trip to Snowdonia, Wales (integral part of GCSE coursework).

Yea 11

(a) Cambridge: to look at urban traffic problems and traffic management schemes in an old historic city (and to enjoy the Cambridge ambience!).

(b) North Kent: studies of contrasting coastal features and coastal management strategies, e.g. at Reculver, North Foreland, Broadstairs.

Year 12/13

(a) North Yorkshire (residential): Newton House, near Whitby. This now occurs at the beginning of Year 12. The students are immersed in all aspects of the course: rivers, flooding, deciduous woodlands (management of ecosystems), soils, sand dune environments, mass movement, footpath erosion, weathering of stones in graveyards, coastal erosion, rural settlements, agriculture, with an in depth study of Beacon Hill Ice Cream farm! The primary data for the 1000 word project is gathered on this trip.

(b) Day Field Trips in and around the Chelmsford area:

Bradwell

study of the ecology, uses and problems of salt marshes.

Chelmsford

urban fieldwork to include the nature and extent of the CBD, and the impacts of recent developments.