TS-9.3

teachwire.net/secondary THE AUTHOR Gemma Wilkes has more than 10 years’ of experience in the outdoor learning sector and is Senior Tutor at FSC Birmingham MAIN ACTIVITIES 1 FIELDWORK Fieldwork allows students to look in more detail at some of the reasons for funding regeneration, and provides an excellent opportunity for developing analysis and evaluation skills across a range of contexts. Students should think about how we can answer the question of whether regeneration is needed. What evidence might we collect and from where? To do this effectively we need to generate more specific geographic questions. The Perry Barr Athletes’ Village project will involve major improvements to the area’s housing and living environment. Appropriate geographical questions could therefore include: ' Why is the living environment of Perry Barr in need of regeneration?' and 'What aspects of the living environment are in most need of regeneration?' Task the students with finding out as much information as possible from a specific area within 10-15 minutes. Their experiences can then facilitate a discussion on the collection methods they used, and how useful the information is. Did everyone do the same things, or were their approaches different? This can lead into using standardised environmental quality surveys. There’s a brilliant opportunity here to give students ownership over the categories and criteria in the survey, so that they can gain experience of justifying the design of their techniques. Show them an example (see bit. ly/3bTqy0c ), and have the students discuss and vote on further relevant categories. To help students evaluate their subjective techniques, ask them to complete a trial EQS without any clarification of criteria, and without discussing it with their group. Discuss the scores that everyone obtains (a great chance to incorporate maths skills). The range can be used to assess reliability, while average values for each category (e.g. a modal score for litter) can be used to identify what criteria students are using that help them to be more precise. The categories can then be updated with criteria for scoring, and this information added to any justifications of methods. This should lead nicely into a discussion around collection of multiple samples to represent an area fully. Each small group should sample more than one location, so that they’re aware of any variation or contrast within the study area. Students can also collect other supplementary data, such as photographs, litter counts and decibel readings. 2 EVALUATION Upon completion of fieldwork, students could be asked for their initial conclusions based on the data. Do their scores all point to the same conclusion? Is that conclusion reliable and accurate? Students should be able to suggest calculating a mean from the class scores to represent all areas, but we can also assess this by presenting the data. You could make a human graph in the field. Get each student to calculate the total score for one area they’ve measured using street furniture or a tape measure as your y axis, and get some of the students to arrange themselves as a dispersion graph. They can then make conclusions about the whole area, discussing the likely average, range of data and presence of any anomalies. Evaluating the impact of errors can also be considered at this stage. Why are the top and bottom scores so different? Is it because there’s a lot of variation in the environment, or is it because it’s still a subjective measurement? Is the data tightly clustered, and if so, what does that tell you? How do we know what a high/low score is? EXPERTADVICE The Field Studies Council has led learning outdoors for more than 75 years, and can provide fieldwork opportunities to students on a day or residential basis at centres across the UK. For more details, visit field-studies-council.org GOING DEEPER • What effects will regeneration have on a given area? Will it meet the needs identified in the fieldwork? What happens if those needs are not met? Can regeneration have negative effects? • Only 24% of the homes in the Athletes’ Village will be affordable housing. You could use songs such as Friends of the People’s Gentrify Rap (see bit.ly/38JYKt5 ) to help introduce these ideas to students and consider how regeneration might take these issues into consideration. SUMMARY The cost of projects such as the Perry Barr Athlete’s Village is vast, so councils and government need to be sure that this is the best use of money that could otherwise be spent on underfunded services. Back in the classroom, students could return to their initial ideas on whether they think the money is worth spending. Would they spend the money based on the evidence they’ve gathered? This is a great opportunity for building on the evaluation points they discussed in the field. How accurate and reliable were their results? Were the limitations large enough to affect the conclusion they’ve reached? Did they notice any other factors that didn’t get measured or considered in the fieldwork? Are these more or less important than the factors that were used? Links to real world geographers and career skills could be made here. Students could write a report for the local mayor, or role play a presentation of their ideas at a local council meeting, complete with tough questions from the audience.