Generic Fieldwork Enquiry Tasks

Generic Fieldwork Enquiry Tasks

For award in 2014

The Controlled Assessment Fieldwork Enquiry tasks are for 2014 award only. Centres must choose from these 8 tasks and not those for 2013.

Centres should complete the Submission of Controlled Assessment form once they have decided on their task and read the accompanying supporting notes.

© WJEC CBAC Ltd

SJ/JF-W.38(12)

The following generic Enquiry Tasks are available for candidates who receive their award in 2014.
Theme / Generic task for the fieldwork Enquiry / The tasks are linked to the following enquiry questions from the specification / Page in specification / Page No.
1 / An investigation into the effects of river processes on the lives of people. / 1.3 How do these landforms and processes affect the lives of people living along rivers? / 14 / 1-8
4 / An investigation of push-pull factors that produce rural-urban migration in a specified area. / 1.2 What are the push / pull factors that produce rural – urban migration and urban – rural migration? / 16 / 9-11
5 / An investigation into the benefits of globalisation in a specified area. / 1.2 What are the benefits of globalisation and why do some see it as a threat? / 17 / 13-14
6 / An investigation into patterns of quality of life in one rural region. / 1.2 What are the regional patterns of economic and/or social development in one country? / 17 / 15-17
7 / An investigation into the processes associated with the sea along a defined stretch of coast which has depositional landforms. / 1.1 What processes are associated with the sea? / 18 / 19-20
9 / An investigation of a sand dune ecosystem. / 1.1 How does the physical environment interact with living things to produce different large scale ecosystems?
or
2.1 In what ways do people use ecosystems? / 19 / 21-23
10 / An investigation of changing patterns of tourism in a specified area. / 1.2 In what ways and why is tourism changing? / 20 / 25-26
11 / An investigation of high street retail change in a specified town/city. / 2.2 How is retailing changing and what effects does this have upon people and the environment? / 20 / 27-29

© WJEC CBAC Ltd

SJ/JF-W.38(12)

Fieldwork Enquiry Task 2014 Rivers (Theme 1)
Theme / Generic task for the fieldwork Enquiry / The tasks are linked to the following enquiry questions from the specification / Page in specification
1 / An investigation into the effects of river processes on the lives of people. / 1.3 How do these landforms and processes affect the lives of people living along rivers? / 14

Contextualised title

Centres may provide candidates with an overarching enquiry question, such as

How does the River Alyn affect landowners / residents of Buckley?

Alternatively, centres may present the task to their candidates as a hypothesis, such as:

Bewdly is more vulnerable to flooding than Shrewsbury.

Unpacking the title

Areas of consideration for river processes could be: deposition, transportation, erosional, weathering or mass movement processes.

Areas of consideration for the lives of people could be:

·  Economic e.g. increase in house prices

·  Environmental e.g. loss of environment, farmland, pollution levels, change of biodiversity / wetlands

·  Social e.g. re-location due to flooding, improvement in social wellbeing / quality of life due to flood defences and gentrification

Primary and Secondary Data

First Hand Data

·  Resident / stakeholder perception / questionnaires surveys: e.g. flood management – does it work? pollution incidents – does it happen often? has it affected the biodiversity of the river?

·  Visual / environmental impact assessment: e.g. approaches to flood management, areas of industrial activity, river erosion / deposition effecting people

·  Biodiversity surveys: e.g. Water species count – abundance and diversity such as Trent Biotic

·  Channel measurements e.g. velocity, depth, wetted perimeter, gradient etc.

·  Bed load measurement e.g. shape and size

·  Field sketches and photos that can be labelled and annotated e.g. sketches of river management schemes, river features e.g. waterfalls

·  Bank full measurements e.g. bank full width, bank full depth

·  Infiltration data

·  Land use transects / surveys

·  Environmental surveys e.g. to look at the attractiveness of river features as local income generators

·  Risk / vulnerability indices

Secondary Data

·  Abstraction licences from the local water authority or the Environment Agency

·  Discharge figures from local industries or processing plants

·  Use of old photographs / maps to compare past and present landforms or river locations

·  Use of local authority of wildlife groups to locate protected ecosystems / SSSIs

·  Use of Geology maps

·  Visitors numbers, income from tourists in relation to river features e.g. waterfall

·  Past years data from same site

For example:

Some of the areas in which rivers effect people: Flooding, water supply, tourism, recreation, industry, transportation. There are some examples in the table underneath, with one or two possible examples of data collection – there are many more!

Example of contextualised title / Possible wider geographical issues / Examples of primary data / Examples of secondary data / Possible useful resources for teachers.
How has River X affected the angling / kayaking / recreational opportunities at X? / Lower discharge levels in rivers, lower river capacity, and higher pollution levels. Ecosystem threats because of low flows, loss of biodiversity. / Velocity, width and depth (for discharge). Bedload size. Questionnaires from local angling club, inc. catch data over the years. (Kayak club, inc. how many days the river is ‘up’ for kayaking on) Mapping of rivers angling sites / recreational sites / Discharge data from environment agency. Local rainfall data. Catchment Abstraction Management Strategy. / Catchment abstraction management strategies (CAMS) http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/business/topics/water/119927.aspx
British Canoe Union http://www.bcu.org.uk/clubs-i-centres/
How has the River X affected the land use / land value along the river corridor? / Upper and lower courses of rivers have different characteristics which will affect the ways humans have interacted with the river. / Land use survey i.e. mapping of land use, estimated economic value, height above river etc. Bankfull velocity, width and depth for bankfull discharge levels. Mapping of significant river land forms / Business rates information. Industry and business locations along river. Locations of any flood management, water supply management. / http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/homeandleisure/floods/riverlevels/default.aspx
Current river levels.
Example of contextualised title / Possible wider geographical issues / Examples of primary data / Examples of secondary data / Possible useful resources for teachers.
To investigate to what extent does river X provide a sustainable ecosystem service to people / Ecosystem provide ‘services’ to people living in and around the ecosystem in a sustainable way. The river provides a water supply for industry / farming and an ecosystem service relating to discharge consents e.g. reed bed sewage systems / Biodiversity survey to look at current water quality, above and below areas with water discharge consents / farms / industry. Questionnaire to locals living within the river corridor / local industries / Mapping of any discharge consents along the river corridor. Website, newspaper articles about industry / farming / http://www.rgs.org/OurWork/Schools/Fieldwork+and+local+learning/Fieldwork+techniques/Ecosystems.htm
Royal Geographical Society Schools fieldwork advice on Ecosystems
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/research/library/consultations/122108.aspx
email link to online public registers of the discharge consents approved by the Environment Agency
http://www.fba.org.uk/recorders/publications_resources/sampling-protocols/contentParagraph/01/document/CourseInvertSamplingProtocol.pdf
Collecting freshwater invertebrate samples from the Freshwater Biological Association
Town x is more vulnerable to flooding than town y / Different rivers have different characteristics and different flood events have different causes linked not only to precipitation but also catchment management and catchment characteristics. / Land use data. Risk and vulnerability mapping. Cost benefit of any existing flood defences. Bankfull data for discharge. Perception questionnaires of local residents looking at how ready they are for a flood, how vulnerable they might be. Geology. Catchment management plans. / Flood maps from the environment agency. Text analysis of newspaper articles of past flooding and responses to the flood event. / Interactive website showing the effects of rising sea levels on rivers. http://flood.firetree.net/
Explanations of measuring flood likelihood and severity. http://www.geography-fieldwork.org/riverfieldwork/flooding/stage2.htm
Environment Agency River Catchment plans
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/research/planning/33586.aspx
Environment Agency Flood Risk maps
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/homeandleisure/floods/default.aspx

Additional Useful weblinks

Displaying and presenting data in rivers fieldwork: http://www.geography.org.uk/projects/ks4ict/idea17/#top

RGS section on rivers fieldwork – has links to an activities document showing how to complete some of the measurements and what to think about when choosing a rivers site for fieldwork:

http://www.rgs.org/OurWork/Schools/Resources/Learning+locally+through+fieldwork/River+basins.htm

Past weather data from a range of stations using Google Maps

http://www.wunderground.com/wundermap/

Valuation Agency Site. Council tax and business rates for properties in England and Wales. http://www.voa.gov.uk/

Postcode code data including, house prices, social grades, crime rates etc.

http://www.checkmyfile.com/postcode-check/SY5-9PR.htm

Maps and air photos using a postcode search.

http://www.bing.com/maps/

Developing a fieldwork enquiry on flood risk

The generic 2014 Fieldwork Enquiry task for Theme 1 investigates the impact of river processes on people. One way to contextualise this task is by investigating the impacts of river floods on a community. Figure 1 suggests four possible approaches.

Figure 1 Four potential approaches to a river flood investigation

1. / The links between weather, soil/rock types, land use and river discharge i.e. the links between movement of water through the drainage basin and the response of a river (its hydrograph).
2. / Flood risk / vulnerability. Students could be asked to identify locations that are at highest flood risk within a community.
3. / The effectiveness of flood prevention strategies such as flood warnings, preparedness, and hard/soft engineering strategies.
4. / Flood perceptions in a community i.e. do different stakeholders have different views on the potential likelihood or impacts of flood events?

Clearly, this task encourages an investigation of the interaction between physical and human environments and, as such, is quite different to the traditional ‘physical geography’ investigation of the characteristics of a river. However, for those centres who wish to maintain a ‘traditional’ approach to the investigation, there is plenty of scope for the collection of primary data of a physical geography nature. The investigations outlined in Figure 1 are arranged in order, with the first investigation representing the most ‘physical’, those in the middle offering balance of physical and human, and the fourth investigation providing a more ‘human’ context.

Primary data collection

Whichever investigation is chosen, students must be involved in primary data collection. Some suggestions are given below. Clearly, you will want to select a range of data collection techniques that provide opportunities for your students to meet the criteria of the mark scheme. Some of the following techniques would be appropriate for all four of the approaches outlined in Figure 1, whilst others would be more suited to approach 1 or approach 4.

1. Infiltration rate experiments. Students could compare infiltration rates on a variety of soils and land uses within the catchment area of their chosen river to gain an insight into water movement in the drainage basin. For example, they could compare infiltration rates (on the same day) on the school playing field, in a ploughed field and in woodland. If the school has a weather station, then your students could collect weather data over a period of time. They could repeat infiltration rate tests in the same land use (e.g. the school playing field) at regular intervals to see the effect of long periods of rain or drought on infiltration.

2. Measurements of cross section and discharge in the river, as long as it is safe to do so, or in a tributary if that offers a more acceptable risk assessment. Students should measure the cross section right across the channel and include the slopes of the river channel, river cliff or slip off slope right onto the flood plain. In that way they will be able to calculate the cross sectional area of water at both low flow conditions and when the river is at bankful stage in the safety of the classroom!

3. Measurements of the height of the river when it was last in flood. Students can measure the height of debris (such as plastics) that has been caught in trees/shrubs along the river bank. This evidence can be added to their cross section diagrams and can be used to show the height of the river (when last in flood) and, therefore, a calculation of cross sectional area of the river (and wetted perimeter) can be made for that flood event.

4. A land use survey of a community close to the river. Students should classify and plot different land uses on to a base map. They can also annotate field sketches or photos showing land uses and locations they consider being vulnerable to flooding. Land use data can be analysed further, after the fieldtrip, with the use of an OS map. Students can assign each location they have visited with a flood risk index.

This can be calculated by:

(a) Scoring each land use. For example, score 1 for land uses that are relatively unaffected by flooding (such as recreational land) through to a score of 5 for high value land uses such as a High Street chain store. Your students can be involved in deciding on an appropriate scoring system.

(b) Calculating the height of the location above the river (using spot heights / contours on the OS map).

(c) Multiplying (a) by (b) to give a flood risk index. These index scores can then be mapped to identify locations at greatest risk, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2 Screenshot of hazard risk map of Taunton produced by students working with FSC

A choropleth map showing presenting similar evidence could be hand drawn.

5. A survey of flood defences such as embankments, gabions, willow planting, flood walls or demountable defences. Local residents sometimes complain that flood defences are ugly and spoil their view of the river. Students could be asked to conduct a bi-polar survey of the flood defences they see. They could also plot flood defences on to a base map and annotate photos or sketches of the defences. A simple bi-polar is suggested below:

The flood defence at location (insert OS grid reference ………) is:

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5
attractive / ugly
well maintained / badly maintained
natural / unnatural
Blends into the urban environment / Stands out in the urban environment

6. Students who are conducting a perception survey as part of their investigation will need to either ask questionnaires (with a mixture of closed and open questions) or conduct longer interviews with local residents, planners, businesses, emergency services etc. They could use their interviews to investigate a hypothesis such as Newcomers have a higher perception of flood risk than residents who have lived in the community for longer.