Geogra3: Geo fieldwork

It's June and national fieldwork week is well underway!  Today's blog is all about pointing you to where you can find some really useful resources to help with planning and designing Geography fieldwork.  With so much disruption in the last few years, fieldwork has not surprisingly taken a back seat.  However, with the Geographical Association's annual fieldwork week, let's use this as our prompt to get back into action.

So what is National Fieldwork Week? 

Each year, the GA encourages schools to take part in fieldwork, and take students outside, whether that’s in the school grounds, local area, or if you’re super lucky, further afield. They have included a whole host of advice, particularly useful if you are new to planning fieldwork, on their website. There is an example of a risk assessment, activities for primary, secondary and post 16 students, including a 15 slide presentation on the impacts of covid in urban areas using traffic surveys to investigate. 

It’s well worth checking out to help plan your next trip - you can even download a certificate to show you took part this week! 

Here’s the link to their webpage where you can find out more. 

Where else can you get fieldwork guidance?

Alan Parkinson is the President of the GA but also has an incredibly informative personal blog over on Living Geography.  During the month of May, he published a fieldwork-related idea every day, including a video clip on the need for properly carried out sampling, resources from Twinkl and a podcast episode on Geogpod.  Just put “national fieldwork” week into the search bar of his blog page and whole host of relevant articles will appear for you to get lost in!

Where can you find data collection sheets for fieldwork?

Chloe Searle is an independent field studies tutor, author, educational consultant, examiner and freelance geographer.  Her webpage is a treasure trove of free resources linked to fieldwork, with a whole variety of data collection sheets including environmental quality bi-polar surveys, beach profiles, and even a way to record mood.  I think this would also be incredibly useful to direct A-level students to when designing and planning their NEAs.  

I hope you have a great time getting out and exploring with the students - it's a heck of a job to get organised and plan it all, not to mention the headache of making sure you return with everyone - but so worth it!

Don't forget, there are 3 ways you can connect with the The Geography Teacher Box to help make your life in and out of the classroom easier:

The FREE question and answer booklet - 15+ Q and A worksheets linked to documentaries 

Classroom-ready powerpoints and worksheets so you never need to feel guilty about showing a video in class again! New pick up and go lesson resources added every month! - The GTB Vault

Connect with other like-minded Geography teachers and share resources - The GTB Facebook Group