A Level Environmental Science at Preston Montford (Small Group Course)

This course provides an opportunity for school with low student numbers to join together. This 3-day fieldwork course offers the opportunity for students to tackle different fieldwork enquiries across a range of dynamic habitats.

Students will gain first-hand experience of all the required sampling techniques (ST) and gain in-depth understanding of all required methodologies (Me).

Students will the opportunity to use a variety of specialist fieldwork equipment useful to the study of Environmental Science including moth and mammal traps and infiltrometers.

Enquiries will be set within an environmental context enabling students to gain a broad and deep understanding of real-world Environmental Science.

Mathematical skills and the use of GIS will encourage students to interrogate and manipulate fieldwork data.

Small Group or Individual Student Days are designed to bring together individual students, home educated students, schools with small cohorts, or students who were unable to attend a residential or alternative trip. By bringing groups together you do not have to pay for a minimum number of students.

These courses are for groups of 9 or fewer students from any one school.

To ensure the safety of all participants on our day and residential small groups courses, any child, or group of children from an individual school or home-education group, aged under 18 years must be accompanied by a responsible adult, eg teacher or parent. Other adult learners eg mature students or those who have recently turned 18 are welcome to join the course.

The price of the course includes:

Accompanying staff and adults are charged at half the student rate plus VAT.

Accommodation in shared rooms (single rooms for adults where available but cannot be guaranteed

Food from dinner on day 1 to packed lunch on day 3

In-course transport to fieldwork sites during the course

All course teaching

Equipment, wellies and waterproofs if required

Example Timetable

Moth and/or mammal trapping to be completed one evening and following morning.

Day 1

Morning

Arrive
Students will be greeted by their tutor, with a welcome talk followed by a brief tour of the centre.
There will be the time to settle into rooms and to eat lunch brought from home.

Afternoon

Succession
Investigating how species presence, abundance and diversity change over time.

Evening

Data analysis
Using their data from their succession investigation, students will construct a scatter-graph before completing a Spearman’s Rank Correlation Co-efficient.

Day 2

Morning

Populations of organisms
Estimating the population size of an organism in a habitat (Lincoln Index)
Investigating differences in invertebrate communities in two contrasting areas.

Afternoon

Carbon cycle
Investigating differences in carbon storage and sequestration between two contrasting areas of woodland

Evening

Data analysis
Graphical and statistical methods will be used to present and analyse data from the two investigations.
Students will consider the real-world significance of their data with links to sustainability and the carbon cycle

Day 3

Morning

Populations of organisms
Continued from Day 2
Hydrosphere
Investigating how rates of infiltration vary between contrasting areas
Data analysis if time allows

Course finishes at 12:00