A Level Woodlands, Secondary Succession, Grasslands at Juniper Hall (Small Group Course)

This course provides an opportunity for schools with low student numbers to prepare, plan and collect data for A Level Biology.

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:

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

Example Timetable

Day 1

Arrival from 12:00

Check into reception.
Luggage to be stored in a safe location until rooms are ready.
Lunch, brought from home, can be eaten outside prior to start of course.

13:00

Meet your tutors for your welcome tour.
Borrow wellies and waterproofs if required.

Woodland Biodiversity

Introduction to the course, learning objectives, woodlands, conservation, and Box Hill.
Walk to Lodge Hill.
Students to set hypotheses after observing the habitats.
Discussion of random sampling, demonstration of methods and collection of data
Collection of data from second site.
Simultaneous readings of light in both sites.
Scientific drawing.
Return to Juniper Hall.
Data presentation and justification of the presentation technique using secondary data.

Break & Bedrooms

Cake & drinks. Time to move into bedrooms.

Evening Meal

One hour break. Dinner sittings of 30 minutes allocated between 17:45 and 19:00.

Evening Session

Data analysis, including the calculation of Simpson’s index of Biodiversity.
Brief Introduction to statistics.
Data analysis using secondary data, standard deviation provided for the students T-test.

20:00

End of taught course. Free time for students. Students to be supervised by school staff.

Day 2

Morning

Breakfast & Packed Lunch
Allocated sittings of 30 minutes between 07:45 and 09:00.
Make packed lunches. Free time until morning activity starts.

09:30

Meet tutors.

Secondary Succession & Systematic Sampling

Introduction to the course, learning objectives, secondary succession and Mickleham Downs.
Walk to Mickleham Downs.
Setting hypotheses after observing the environment.
Discussion of systematic sampling and demonstration of methods.
Data collection in groups.
Complete field work to include estimating the height of a tree.
Scientific drawing of a chosen species (if not done on a previous day).
Write risk assessment.
Return to Juniper Hall.
Detailed evaluation of data collection methods, to include limitations and improvements.

Lunch & Break

Lunch will be eaten at a suitable time (approx. 12:30) outside, with a cake & drinks break in the afternoon (approx. 15:30).

Evening Meal

One hour break. Dinner sittings of 30 minutes allocated between 17:45 and 19:00.

Evening session

Data presentation using students’ own data. Students to draw a scatter graph and a kite diagram.

20:00

End of taught course. Free time for students. Students to be supervised by school staff.

Day 3

Before Breakfast

Stripping beds of bedlinen. Pack bags.

Breakfast & Packed Lunch

Allocated sittings of 30 minutes between 07:45 and 09:00.
Make packed lunches.

After Breakfast

Move luggage out of bedrooms to secure storage area.
Free time until morning activity starts.

09:30

Meet tutors.

Grassland Study

Brief introduction to the impact of trampling on Box Hill and the importance of chalk grasslands.
Walk to Burford Spur.
Brief introduction to the location.
In small groups, choose an independent variable and a species to study.
Choose an appropriate method, sampling strategy and control variables.
Students to carry out the data collection element of their individual planned investigation.
Take photograph of chosen species for scientific drawing back at school.
Return to Juniper Hall

12:00

End of course and departure.