Year 12

On Monday, we started by looking at the systems approach - we talked about the global hydrological system as a closed system, and the drainage basin hydrological cycle as an open system.

We converted the drainage basin hydrological cycle diagrams you'd done for homework into flow diagrams, and had a look at a couple of exam questions.

We went on to look at the water balance and soil moisture budgets, and then river regimes.

Almost all of you managed yesterday to hand in your river regimes work via the new system - unfortunately two people have their first homework warning already!

On Thursday morning, we were out and about measuring infiltration rates around the school grounds. Remember that when you are writing up the investigation, you will need to include:

Aim
Hypothesis
Method
Results
Analysis/Discussion
Conclusion
Evaluation

Your graphs should be line graphs showing how the water level dropped over time.

As you know, I am not in school on Monday as it is Year 11's Burbage visit. In my absence, I would like you to look back at your flow diagram from Monday's lesson. For each component, I would like you to write a sentence or two to explain what that component is, and then to consider the factors that affect each component - eg when we talked about infiltration rates, we said that the permeability of the surface, soil compaction, antecedent moisture, etc. would all cause variations in the rates of infiltration.

Both your investigation write-up and the work I'd like you to do on Monday need to be ready for Thursday's lesson to hand in to me.

Don't forget, if you have any problems with it, email me or come and find me on Tuesday or Wednesday - don't just turn up on Thursday without having done the work!

Test! And infiltration rates....

At last!! Today was the day of the long-awaited test... Not had chance to have a look at them yet, but I have a feeling from your reactions that some of you were more confident than others!

I also gave you back your write-ups of the infiltration practical we did... On the whole, not bad. There were some good, clear graphs, and some well-written aims/hypotheses. All of you need to work on your explanations of your findings - lots of you used your Analysis section to describe your graphs, but very few people actually explained the patterns that their graphs showed. It is also important that investigations are written in the third person, and that key geographical terms are used - your writing will sound far more professional and sophisticated than "I collected the equipment that I needed and then I went and chose a site and stuck the drainpipe into the ground....." and you will sound far more as though you know what you are talking about!!

Infiltration Rates

For Tom's benefit (and a reminder for Laura who was too busy practising her long jump skills to worry about geography...) - a quick summary of this afternoon's adventures...

First, we thought about the factors that we thought might affect rates of infiltration - they included:
- vegetation cover
- the compactness of the soil
- antecedent weather conditions
- current levels of soil moisture
- the intensity and duration of the rainfall event

You then decided how you would measure infiltration rates, and formulated your hypotheses.

You should now have a complete set of results for your group and the next thing is to write up your investigation.... Remember:

Aim - what you are trying to find out.
Hypotheses - predictions about what you think you will find. Make sure these are specific.
Method - describe what you did. This should be clear and concise, with enough detail that someone else could go out and replicate your experiment. (It shouldn't, however, be written as a set of instructions!)
Results/Data Presentation - in this case, this will be your graphs. Precisely what you are plotting will vary slightly depending on how you measured your infiltration rates. However, they should show clearly how the infiltration rate at each site changed over time.
Analysis - what do your results show? Start with general patterns and trends, and then explain in more detail. Do your results show what you expected to find? Are there any surprising results/anomalies? If so, can you explain them?
Conclusion - return to your aims and hypotheses, and sum up what you've found out.
Evaluation - how successful was your investigation? Are there things you could improve if you were to repeat the investigation? How could you extend/develop the investigation?

As I said this afternoon, the experiment we did was by no means perfect - the main aims were to get you thinking a bit, working in groups and developing some skills, and getting used to the idea of writing up a geographical investigation.

Whilst I am expecting a decent piece of work from everyone, I am not expecting pages and pages - it should be clear and concise!

Your completed work is due in on WEDNESDAY. Don't forget to come and see me or email if you have problems - don't turn up without the work!!