|
|
Boot-ing up and stream-ing data - fieldwork with new technology
By Ben Williamson, Learning Researcher, Futurelab |
Armed with laptops, data-logging equipment, cameras, spreadsheets and wellington boots, over 600 Year 5 pupils from across North Bristol undertook one of the largest fieldwork exercises ever attempted in UK education during June this year.
The project was based at Bristol's historic Blaise Castle estate, providing the children with 650 acres of semi-ancient and rich natural habitats to explore, including a limestone gorge, cave, woodlands and rivers. It also contains many rare species of birds, butterflies and flowers, as well as a castle house, museum and, importantly, a playground.
But the Blaise Castle Project has been much more than just a series of pleasant day trips to the countryside for children more accustomed to North Bristol's sprawling housing estates.
Project organiser Simon Squire, a Curriculum Innovator based at the The-I City Learning Centre in Bristol, said, "I chose Blaise because it's a fabulous resource, with masses to do up there, and lots of different environments that you can look at."
Throughout the month, up to 60 children a day from 15 primary schools took part, with activities including measuring stream quality, conducting stream and woodland habitat studies, visitor surveys, and insect counts.
Data was collected using mobile data-logging equipment (instruments that can be used to capture a range of different types of information, including light, temperature and sound), stream-flow meters, and digital cameras. It could then be collated using spreadsheets on laptops and analysed alongside existing databases and resources downloaded from the web.
According to Squire, the project was initially intended as an introduction to using data-loggers and spreadsheets, a requirement of the primary curriculum.
"But we thought, if you're going to do that, why not do creatures in the stream, and link stream conditions to quality of water?" he said. "We started putting together very much a multidisciplinary and cross-curricular scheme of work."
From here, the scope was broadened to cover topics from a variety of subject areas, including geography, science and ICT, in a seamless way, and soon encompassed many curriculum areas that the children would be required to study in Year 6, and even in secondary school.
The project also encouraged a lot of group working, including the allocation of jobs and responsibilities. At any one time, some children would be ankle-deep in the streams adjusting meters and viewers, while others were data-logging, and others collating that data and transforming it into charts and graphs on laptops from the bank.
"It was about thinking, where can we start with this, but how can it be used into the future as well?" Squire explained. From the stack of letters of thanks that the project team has received from children and teachers who have participated in the project, it is clear that they found it a valuable addition to their calendar for the year, and a stimulus for their future activities.
But the team behind it is quick to acknowledge all the support they have received, including discounted coach services courtesy of The Big Yellow Bus scheme, extra staff from the Bristol Museums Service, trainee teacher volunteers from the University of West of England, and archive access from the BBC Natural History Unit, as well as support from the North Bristol Education Action Zone and assistance from other local initiatives.
Connections were also made with organisations responsible for surveying and collecting national data, so that the children were involved in activities to support local and national level initiatives.
The Natural History Museum, for instance, invited the students to contribute to their UK woodlouse survey by providing the entire 'Walking with Woodlice' website as a downloaded reference resource to use offline in the field. The children also conducted a bumblebee nest count for National Insect Week, and were invited to send the results of their stream quality assessments to the Bristol Living Rivers Project, a local environmental awareness group.
For Simon Squire and his team, this was an opportunity to give the children an experience of acting as real environmental scientists, conducting real, authentic experiments in the field and making a contribution to local and national awareness of the natural environment and insect habitats.
Squire explained, "We wanted the children to feel like they were involved, and to have a very clear reason for doing all the different things that they were doing."
And what about the future of the project? There are already several openings. The project's success this year has guaranteed already that it will go ahead again in 2005: Squire has the Blaise site booked for next June, and four schools comprising 300 pupils have already signed up.
Even in the shorter term, some of the children's work will be on show in a new interactive display at the renovated Blaise Castle café over the summer, and will contribute to the development of a new visitors' information point.
While the team are keen to establish the project as an annual activity on the estate for at least the next five years, they think similar activities could take place almost anywhere in the country, given the right resources and assistance. It would not be too difficult to re-purpose many of the resources that have been generated and used this year already.
Later this year, more advanced data-logging activities at Blaise will take place with secondary school pupils as well, during which they will make virtual tours of the site.
There are also ambitious plans to incorporate more cutting edge technologies for future years. These include using Global Positioning Systems and advanced Geographical Information Systems to plot the coordinates of the site and produce multimedia maps, making Quicktime movies, and even enhancing collaboration between schools before and after the event by using virtual classroom facilities to conduct shared data analysis activities.
All of these possible directions have potential to make outdoor fieldwork experiences such as the Blaise Castle Project even more stimulating, cross-curricular and multidisciplinary, initiating students into activities that more accurately mirror actual fieldwork practices as they occur in diverse professions.
For Simon Squire the most important side of the project remains getting children out into the field, and learning about the environment and natural habitats by actually exploring them. He said, "Make the learning exciting, make it dynamic, and children will pick it up much much more rapidly."
Links
The-I City Learning Centre: www.thei.info
Blaise Castle Estate: www.forestofavon.org.uk/blaisecastle.html
Walking with Woodlice (Natural History Museum): www.nhm.ac.uk/interactive/woodlice
For further information about the project, you can contact Simon Squire through The-I City Learning Centre website.
July 2004
|
|
