Introductory techniques

Pupils consider the best place to locate a picnic bench (this could be a friendship bench, wellbeing bench or a ‘bench with a view’ etc. You might consider other possible developments within the school grounds at a range of scales) within the school grounds or local area. As a class, discuss what features that a good location for a picnic bench would require. Pupils then use their prior knowledge, maps and aerial photographs of the school or local area to come up with a shortlist of two to five locations.

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Pupils could also carry out a microclimate investigation. Measure all or some of the following: wind direction, wind speed, temperature, cloud cover and precipitation levels at two or three varied locations around the school grounds across a week, or longer. The data collected could be tabulated, graphed or mapped to allow analysis which demonstrates that there are slight variations in each across space even at a ‘micro’ scale. Link to study of the climate of other places locally, nationally or globally.

Environmental Quality Assessment

Introduce the EQA as a technique for helping to decide where the best location is. Create a table similar to the one below that includes the features of a good picnic site identified previously. Pupils then visit each of the shortlisted sites in small groups and complete a table for each location. For example:

 Next to nature area:

By the playground

Questions:

• What do we mean by access / accessibility?

Ease of access for everyone, including those with limited mobility:

• Are all of the criteria measured of equal value?

For example, is it more important to have access to bins or shade? If so, is that the same for everyone?

• Has every group got the same results? Why/why not?
• How can we use this information to decide the best location?

Data presentation

Simple bar charts are a useful way to display this collected information for different areas or categories. For example, the class could create a bar chart showing the total environmental quality score for the different locations or make separate bar charts for each factor e.g. access to toilets, good views etc., to compare the scores across the locations.

Provide questions to explore the geographical practice of data collection and analysis, for example:

• Could we create a graph that allows for better visual comparison? If so what type of graph?

Make large green graphs: bar charts out of sticks and leaves

• Does it matter if our graph isn’t accurate?

No, as long as it is approximate. It is designed to allow an easy visual comparison.

Example of green graph, made out in the field to guide student’s ideas of the trends in their findings whilst still in the location.  They can then take photos of these and add axis labels and title back in class.

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The Geographical Association (GA) has worked closely with the Field Studies Council (FSC) to develop these resources.