KS3 Active Geography: Fieldwork, curriculum and skill building

This gives just one example of what an Active Geography course looks like at our centres. We will adapt the activities to your outcomes, student needs, the location and conditions on the day.

Day 1

Morning

Arrive (approx. 12 - 1pm)

• Welcome and outline the challenges ahead
• Tour of Centre
• Allocate kit, eg waterproofs

Afternoon

Teambuilding

Depending on the outcomes you want to achieve, we will use a range of techniques and fun activities to focus on the skills required for teambuilding, including effective communication, self-confidence and problem-solving. Activities could include a team water transport challenge, a problem-solving minesweeper game and line-sorting tasks.

The teamwork skills, support and collaboration built in this session are carried forward to support effective fieldwork during the course.

Evening

Night walk

Take a guided journey around the centre grounds to connect to nature through contact with nocturnal wildlife. By observing the night sky (depending on weather conditions) students may learn about the stars, and also understand the impact of light pollution. Students will also engage with reflective exercises to develop a better understanding of how to manage their own wellbeing.

Day 2

Morning and Afternoon

Depending on your location, you will explore a local landscape, physical environment or human place, eg coastal, river, mountain or urban. After a scene setting introduction, students will collect data using fieldwork techniques relevant to the environment and enquiry question. Examples might include channel characteristics in a river or clone town surveys in an urban area.

Throughout the study, our tutors will highlight the links to wider sustainability and global geographies such as the impacts of and mitigations for climate change as well as making the links between people and place. To underpin the learning and promote positive wellbeing, we encourage and embed the 5 pathways to nature connection. Whatever the weather and location, this day can develop student resilience, increase their ability to plan for an outdoor day, change their perspective and develop their team-building skills.

Evening

We will encourage students to reflect on the fieldwork and personal skills they have learned during the day. Depending on your preferred outcomes we can take students out for a fun, social activity like orienteering in teams using a map. Or you may prefer to let us run a campfire for you for students to learn the joy of keeping warm on a dark, chilly evening, laughing with their friends.

Day 3

Morning

You can use the final morning to develop more geographical fieldwork skills by further follow up of the enquiry; build other subject links; learn about the environment with a practical conservation task or build skills with bushcraft and survival skills.

Examples include habitat creation, planting for wildlife, water sustainability, fire-lighting and shelter-building, micro-climates and sustainability, impact of tourism,

Afternoon

Depart after lunch

Students will take part in fieldwork activities that allow them to understand, through the use of detailed place-based exemplars at a variety of scales, physical and human geography concepts, and environments. Outdoor learning and experience promote creative and critical thinking as well as improving nature connections, teamwork and resilience and links to sustainability.

Develop skills

• Communication | Resilience | Independent thinking | Leadership
• Numeracy | Literacy | Investigative skills | Observation

Enhance Knowledge'

• Ask questions.
• Apply knowledge in the real world and make links.
• Make sense of new places and understand our place and role within this.

Enjoy'

• Have fun | Make friendships | Connect with nature