Rivers
Fieldwork for secondary schools and colleges: river landforms and processes
Follow the Clither Beck downstream, from near its source up on the moor, as it widen and deepens on its route towards The Moors National Park Centre at Danby. Passing V-shaped valleys and meanders, where there are opportunities to discuss these landforms and draw field sketches, students will collect data on river variables at three sites. The day is set up with a clear investigation structure, including an aim, hypotheses, data collection and collation; and then resources to support teachers to present and analyse data back at school.
Supporting Resources:
- Student overview (worksheet includes field sites, key terms and learning objectives) (pdf)
- GCSE predictions & conclusions (worksheet: hypotheses and summarising conclusions) (pdf)
- Introductory PowerPoint (to support teachers introducing the fieldwork prior to the investigation) (ppt)
- River Day Lesson Plan (overview of activities, concepts, opportunities for formative assessment) (pdf)
- Further Information Booklet (background information on sites and river concepts) (pdf)
- Example recording sheet (pdf)
- River Excel Doc. (collates data, river calculations, creates graphs and Spearman's Rank) (Excel)
Fieldwork for secondary schools and colleges: flooding in Pickering
Exploring the well known Pickering case study of flood management, 'Slow the Flow'. Students will collect data on streams above and below small 'leaky' dams north of Pickering, and undertake fieldwork to assess infiltration rates on different land-uses. This gives students a good understanding of why the catchment is prone to flooding, and ways this has been managed through this innovative project. Then in Pickering students will assess the likelihood and impact of flooding, collecting data which can be mapped on simple GIS packages.
Supporting Resources:
- Student overview (worksheet includes field sites, key terms and learning objectives) (pdf)
- Flooding Lesson Plan (overview of activities, concepts, opportunities for formative assessment) (pdf)
- Flood defence labelled field sketches and bi-polar assessment (filled in teacher copy) (pdf)
- Infiltration Rates (recording sheet which compares infiltration rates on different land uses) (pdf)
- Flood risk zones and recording sheets (resources for Pickering flood risk mapping) (pdf)
- River Excel document (enter data form above and below dams to compare channel storage) (excel)
- Infiltration Excel document (enter infiltration data from different land uses) (excel)
- Flood Risk Scoring Excel Doc. (enter information collected in Pickering and map on Google Earth)
- Example choropleth flood risk graph (displays in Google Earth, uses data collected by students) (kmz)
Fieldwork for KS2
- Fieldwork activity description (pdf)
- Example recording sheet (pdf)
- Minibeast key and water quality chart (pdf)
Further resources to extend learning
- Background information about the catchment and secondary data for additional sites (pdf)
- Map of the River Esk catchment (pdf)
- Photographs of additional recording sites (pdf)