L6 Biology Field Trip

The Field Trip to Rhyd-y-Creuau for those Lower 6th Students studying AS Biology and AS Human Biology,

took place between Sunday 22nd and Friday 27th June 2003.

Report Day 1 - Sunday

Unlike the Biologists attending last year’s Field Trip, the class of 2003 endured a straightforward and comfortable journey to the Field Centre in Betws. After Wellingtons, waterproofs and other ecological sampling equipment were issued, the students had a dinner of roast lamb from the local flock before their evening class. Introductions for the course were given along with the mandatory rules and safety warnings before their first evenings study. After a quick introduction to the Lincoln Index, they were sent out armed with Longworth traps to try to apply their newly learnt theory to catching and estimating the size of the local "small mammal" population.

Within half an hour Tom Christodoulu and Bhavin Patel had succeeded in catching a male field mouse with their elaborately and successfully camouflaged trap.

Ellie Hicks had also befriended a blackbird...

It seems already the SDC Biologists are comfortably at one with nature! More photos to follow soon...

Day 2 - Monday

Pupils were up early at 7:30 to get breakfast and to make up their lunches for the long day ahead. Lessons began at 9:30 after the Longworth traps were collected and opened to see if any more small mammals were captured overnight. Ten out of sixteen traps were successful. This was a tremendous result considering that the other two schools present here, had not caught anything, despite setting traps every night since Friday! Species identified were bank voles, field mice and shrews.

Morning theory work was about species richness and diversity and sampling before the groups headed out into the field to woodland and river habitats.

The woodland group carried out studies on lichen and moss. They investigated the abundance on oak and birch trees using point sampling with quadrats and transects. After lunch the group trekked up to the top of the hill for an outstanding view and afternoon siesta. On the return to the Field Centre, straight down a very steep and winding path, the group played "chicken" with a herd of cattle led by a young bull and the girls had a competition to see who could fall over the most times with a second prize for the most embarrassing fall. Miss Bisnath comfortably won both! After dinner the students were set to task preparing mini-coursework assignments in just one hour. Working in groups of four they were given a strict timetable for planning, researching, carrying out and then analysing and presenting their findings to the remainder of their classmates and the Field Centre Lecturers. Topics ranged from:

"Effect of trampling on percentage coverage on the football pitch"
"Effect of light on buttercup distribution" and
"The Diversity of Invertebrates at Different Depths in Leaf Litter and Soil".

All the students found the exercise very useful and it has generated some interesting hypotheses, some of which may well become their A2 Coursework assignments.

Day 3 - Tuesday

Today all the research activities were moved out to the sand dunes at Harlech beach. Under the watchful eye of the thirteenth century castle, the students carried out a long and arduous data collecting exercise in the hot sun. Working along a transect running from the sea edge to the climax community woodland 500 metres inland, the pupils used point sampling to determine the different vegetation at different sites throughout the dunes.

Tom Christodoulu threatened to steal Selina’s "most spectacular dive down a cliff edge" title by plunging into a bramble bush and then proceeding to "swim" around in an increasingly noisy, yet surprisingly(?!) less coordinated manner, Selina however would have none of this and soon regained the title with a 30ft stumble, trip, tumble roll and slide onto the seashore from the top of the dune!

On the return journey abiotic conditions were sampled with readings taken of wind speed, humidity, and soil temperature. Soil samples were also collected at each of the ten sites for further analysis back at the field centre.

A well deserved break was enjoyed on the beach with Frisbee, Rugby and Toe-dipping-in-the-sea. The boys also gave the bookies some predictors for next weeks 100m at sports day with a dash along the sea edge. I won’t reveal the winner but I think there will be some surprises at Ladywell on Tuesday! The day revealed an interesting contradiction of attitudes towards the gloriously sunny weather from the girls. Half were desperate to get as much exposure as they could to perfect their tans and the other 50% made every attempt to not let even one photon strike!

Back at the field centre the students had a taste of what is to come tomorrow when they begin their coursework, with the evening study session continuing late until 20:45. On Wednesday night, all are expected to have completed their research and planning, in order that they may start their own work, first thing on Thursday morning.