Update.... (1)

Lots to catch up on as it has been a busy few weeks...

After spending the first few weeks of term getting to grips with the hydrological cycle and river processes, it was off to Dovedale for Year 12. Fortunately this time, it wasn't the morning after a Sixth Form Party, but the weather when we arrived at our first site was thoroughly grey and miserable, and the fog made it pretty difficult to see the nice v-shaped valley and interlocking spurs. Luckily, things improved as the day went on, and we almost had some sunshine when we got to Site 3. We measured a number of variables at each site - channel width and depth, velocity, gradient of the long profile, and size and angularity of bedload, with the aim of understanding how these variables changed with distance downstream. After lunch (and all those gates) we arrived at Milldale, from where we walked down Dovedale to the famous stepping stones, stopping to look at a variety of interesting geographical and geological features along the way, including Ilam Rock, the Tissingon Spires, Thorpe Cloud and Lover's Leap (although I was disappointed with the response that my rendition of the Lover's Leap legend received...). The highlight of the day, of course, was the ice cream...

For more about Dovedale, including various links, click on the label at the bottom of this post.

Since our return from Doevdale, we've spent a lot of lesson time writing up our findings in preparation for the GEOG2 exam in January. You should, by now, be very familiar with the enquiry structure:

- Aims (what you were trying to find out)
- Hypotheses (predictions of what you expected to find - with some theory to back them up!)
- Method (what you did - remember, your method should be clear enough that someone who knows nothing about what you were doing could replicate your investigation)
- Results (maps, graphs, tables, statistics, etc. - presentation of your findings)
- Analysis (discussion of the results of your investigation... make sure that you link back to your hypotheses)
- Conclusion (a summary of your findings - link back to your aims and hypotheses... Make sure that you are not saying anything new in this section!)
- Evaluation (what was successful about your investigation, what was less successful - and how could those problems have been resolved, how could you extend/develop the investigation?)

We also had to make sure that we considered the risks that we faced, and it might well be that you are asked about risk assessment in your GEOG2 exam.

Year 12 River Dove Visit

Despite several of the party not being entirely "with it" at the start of the day, the Year 12 geographers had a good visit to the River Dove just before half-term. The morning was spent measuring a variety of channel characteristics at several different sites along the upper course of the River Dove. Google Maps is not cooperating at the moment, but hopefully will be able to add in a map showing the sites we visited here soon.

After lunch we arrived at Milldale, where we had a look round the National Trust Information Barn and then set off walking down Dovedale, stopping along the way to look at a variety of fantastic geological features and to think about how the river was continuing to change.


(I'll save the photos of the ice cream eating for school!)

The "mystery building" at Site 3 was a gauging station (yes, that was Wikipedia link...), and we saw another one near to the end of our walk at the bottom of Dovedale. A variety of data for the Hollinsclough gauging station (which is no longer in use), the Izaak Walton gauging station (and every other gauging station in the UK!) is available from the National Environment Research Council.

Year 12 River Dove Visit

The ppt that we used in this morning's lesson with the details of what we will be doing on our field visit next Thursday can be downloaded here. Make sure that you understand each of the variables we'll be looking at - and how to measure them, and remember please that for Monday, you need to be designing a simple recording sheet to use "in the field".

We will be leaving school at 8.30am on Thursday, and intend to be back by 5.30pm.

You will need to have a packed lunch with you, and will need to be suitably dressed with plenty of warm clothing, waterproofs, etc. Wellies for the morning if you have them, and walking boots or sturdy shoes for the afternoon.

If you look back a few posts you will find the Where's the Path? site which will allow you to look at full screen OS maps of the area we'll be visiting. Our first site will be at Axe Edge - the source of the River Dove, and we will then visit 4 more sites between there and Beresford Dale/Wolfscotedale. At lunchtime, we'll get to the Milldale carpark, near the "top" of Dovedale, and we'll spend the afternoon walking down Dovedale to the carpark near the famous stepping stones.

Year 12 - River Processes

We spent Monday's lesson looking at river processes - how AND why rivers erode, transport and deposit material.

We also spent a long time thinking about the Hjulstrom Curve.

This might be a helpful reminder...

On Thursday, we will be spending the skills lesson preparing for next week's field visit. If you want to have a look at where we'll be going, check out the photos I've put on Geogtastic, or do a quick internet search for River Dove or Dovedale.