Human impact and ethics: KS4

Introductory techniques

An investigation exploring footpath erosion allows for relatively simple and accessible means to explore human impact on the natural environment.

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In some instances, this investigation may be able to take place within the school grounds. Otherwise, a local park, or field with public footpaths would be suitable.

Either visiting the fieldwork site(s) themselves and drawing a field sketch, or using an image, pupils can make observations about the environments through annotations. The diagram below provides some questions for the students to consider.

Technique to assess human impact and ethics

Aim: to investigate the impact of footpath erosion on the local environment

Equipment that can be used, dependent on methods selected:

tape measures
quadrats (suggest 0.5 x 0.5 gridded) or metal coat hangers bent into a square shape
30cm rulers
string
spirit level or ‘measure’ app on phone
knitting needles or sturdy metal pins.
Field Studies Council’s playing field plant ID guide or grassland plants ID guide if you wish students to identify plants.

In the chosen location(s) or in the classroom prior to going outside, pupils can start by thinking about conducting fieldwork on the path use. Allow them to come up with techniques themselves. Discussions are likely to have started with the field sketch / annotated photograph in the starter activity.

They are likely to come up with pedestrian counts, to record the number and type of users on the path. During discussions they can select a suitable length for the count and relevant categories of ‘pedestrians’ – this may include walkers, cyclists, dog walkers and horse riders. They can also evaluate the technique, concluding that they need to repeat the pedestrian counts at different points of the day, where possible, or at least consider how time of day (and year) will impact the number of people using the path.

In the chosen location(s), with groups spread out along a section of the footpath, get students to set out a tape measure as a transect across the path. Measure the width of the path, and at suitable chosen intervals measure:

Bare ground / vegetation cover: Using quadrats (or similar) record the extent of bare ground or vegetation cover. Students can estimate the % cover within the quadrat.
Path profile: Attach a piece of string to the top of two 30cm rulers, long enough to span the width of your path. Make sure the string is tight. Push the rulers into the ground either side of the path, until the string is level. At selected intervals, or for each quadrat, measure the distance between the string and the surface of the path. Erosional features, such as gullies, should be measured specifically. These measurements can be used to generate a cross-profile of the path itself. See image below.
Soil compaction: Gently push a knitting needle into the ground and measure how deep it goes in with a ruler. You may wish to refer to the RGS method for soil compaction.

Analysis: Students can plot the varying data, on graph paper or using online resources. Dependent on the group, this could be be done as a graph with multiple axes to compare two sets of data side-by-side.

They can also draw path profiles, if this method was selected. They can begin to analyse how the varying factors at different sites on the path(s) and start to correlate these with one another e.g. is there a correlation between number of pedestrians and the soil compaction.

Using the data collected, pupils could start to think about ways to minimise further erosion of the footpath, thinking about possible constraints such as the cost, the use of the footpath and the wider disturbance that could be caused.

Given the topic of study, ensure discussions are had with pupils about the ethics of the investigation itself. Are they adding to the problem? How does our data collection impact the environment?

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