Tuesday 21 October 2008

UK Tourism and Coursework

Period 3 was spent looking at UK tourism case studies - remember you have a list of questions to base your work on, but should also include a map (or maps) and anything else that you think is useful or interesting (especially about tonnes of fish....). Don't forget about the article about heritage tourism that I gave you - very important that you understand terms such as heritage tourism, cultural tourism, etc.

Period 4 was more coursework time. Most of you are now well on the way and have clear plans for what you are doing in terms of data collection during half-term. I will remind you tomorrow but:

- field sketches are a really useful thing to be able to include in your projects
- photographs (especially digital ones that you can annotate easily) are also a valuable addition to your project, and if you are doing a physical project, might help with things like plant identification... also get your family/friends/whoever to take pictures of you doing your work - we had plenty of amusement with the Wales pictures (and we still haven't seen all of them - Joel and Laura!) so no reason why we shouldn't break up our "long and drawn-out" Wednesday morning lessons with some more photo-viewing!!
- make sure that you have everything that you need with you... most of you have given me details of what you need in terms of equipment... we should have ranging poles sorted, and so you will need to come up straighaway at the end of school on Friday to collect equipment. If there is a problem with this, you need to let me know asap - I am not here on Thursday as I am out on fieldwork with Year 12, and I am spending my free period on Friday collecting ranging poles!!
- be flexible and think on your feet... You might find when you get to your fieldwork location that things are not quite as you expected... If you are forced to change your plans, don't worry!! A student a few years ago, for example, was looking at LSD on a spit.... He spent a day collecting lots of data and then found when he went back to continue the following day that a huge storm overnight had completely changed the shape of the beach - he changed his plans and produced (arguably) a better piece of work as a result...
- email if you need some help... Don't wait til we get back and then tell me that you got stuck and didn't know what to do. I am away from Friday until Sunday, but will be within reach of a computer for the rest of the week... if in doubt, ask!!
- enjoy yourself!! You will need to work hard to make sure that you have all the data that you need, but you have picked a project that interests you and you are all going to interesting locations (well, most of you anyway...) - make the most of it!

If you haven't had a meeting with whoever is supervising your project, you must must must make sure that you do so tomorrow - we are all out on Thursday for Year 12 fieldwork, and Friday is cutting it a bit fine!

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