Want to run fieldwork for your middle school classes but unsure where to start? Or keen to discover some new fresh ideas to freshen up your programmes? Come and join us at Christian Brothers College, Wakefield Street for chance to take part in one of 3 guided fieldworks led by an expert teacher and then learn about all 3 experiences as we discuss in a workshop afterwards.

Please provide your preference 1-3 (1 the fieldwork you’d most like to experience) for the following options.

Microclimates

Climatic conditions in an area can be affected by the landscape, relief and activities taking place (both human and natural). Within a climatic region, the climate may vary from place to place, e.g. the top of a hill, the sunny side of a hill, the shaded side of a hill and the bottom of a hill where a body of water may lay. These areas with their small variations are called microclimates.

This fieldwork provides year 7 (or year 8) students an opportunity to be introduced to what fieldwork is, the enquiry process and how they can explore various microclimates within their school to ‘find the best spot to eat lunch’. This task allows students to have a go at each stage of fieldwork including, the planning of their enquiry, collecting data, reporting on methods used, presenting their findings in a variety of ways, and analysing and drawing conclusions from their collected data with supporting evidence. This PD will walk you through a ‘how to’ surrounding the delivery of the unit on site at CBC as well as demonstrate the equipment used, how the task all comes together and the opportunity to incorporate GIS technology as a further layer of complexity.

Danielle Cross (Prince Alfred College)

Flinders Street Project

Flinders Street is comprised of diverse land uses and is a busy, cosmopolitan street in the Adelaide CBD. This fieldwork activity investigates the concept ‘liveability’ and asks students to consider whether Flinders Street is a desirable place to live. It is designed for Year 8’s studying urbanisation within the Changing Nations unit of Geography. The activity is largely student driven, including students creating their own hypothesis, generating their own land use map of Flinders Street and engaging in a range of other fieldwork tasks. Participation in the PD opportunity involves undertaking some of the fieldwork activities on Flinders Street and returning to CBC to discuss how the results can be mapped and reported.

George Bryant, CBC

Patterns of globalisation in Rundle Street and Rundle Mall.

Students learn to develop their own inquiry questions and hypotheses based around their understanding of how global connections influence local places based around:

Global retail
Global Food and Drink
Cultural features
Tourism features

Students then develop skills in developing data collection, creating forms on epicollect5 to collect a wide range of data sources in the study zone.

This field workshop will demonstrate both the data collection component and how students can use the data within ArcGIS and Google My Maps to create their own GIS maps and form analysis.

Elise Walker (Pembroke)