Year 7 Geography Field Trip - Staycation

PUBLISHED 24 June 2020

"Residential in Lockdown 2020"

At this time of year, Year 7 AKS students would normally embark on their three-day residential trip to Ingleton to study rock formations in a cave, waterfalls on the Rivers Twiss and Doe and to undertake some geographical measurements of a river and a rural village.

Unfortunately, we are unable to undertake this trip, so the Geography department have devised a geography ‘residential’ at home between 24-26th June. The residential comprises a series of challenges and fieldwork opportunities for them to increase their geographical knowledge of your local area and still experience some of the fun of a residential.

Mr O'Loughlin explained to the students, "Part of the residential may well have been challenging for yourself, either physically or mentally, especially when we go caving! This is all part of ‘adventurous learning’; being able to understand what you find hard but giving it a go and trying your best. Whilst we may not be able to fully recreate this sense of ‘adventure’, maybe we can instil a sense of hope and inspiration for the future. I would like you to go to the following website and watch the films about four young people who have challenged themselves and achieved some great outcomes."

Activities:

1. On a residential you would not be sleeping in your own bed, in your own room. Therefore, for two nights you need to sleep in a different location to the one you would normally sleep in at home. This could be in a tent in the garden, in a den you have made out of sheets in the dining room, sleeping in a sleeping bag in the kitchen! If you have a brother or sister, encourage them to join you as well - you could even try sleeping in a different place each night!
2. One of the ‘joys’ of being on a residential is helping out with the necessary chores, eg. helping to make breakfast and lunch, and tidying away afterwards! For this ‘residential’ you need to be responsible for cooking and clearing away two whole meals, for all members of your family over the duration of the residential. This means you need to plan, get the ingredients (you can ask the person who is doing the shopping to get them for you), cook the meal and tidy away afterwards. The two meals cannot be the same or for the same meal, ie. one breakfast and one evening meal, not two breakfasts. You might need to ask your parents what a suitable budget for each meal will be!
3. When out in the spectacular scenery of the Yorkshire Dales, students often remark on how beautiful it is and how they wish they had this type of scenery at home. I believe all scenery can be inspiring; it just depends on the way you look at it. How much time do we spend looking but not actually seeing?  You are going to take some photographs of your local area and each day of the ‘residential’ we will post a new theme for the photo. For example, the theme might be the weather, the human or built environment, or even an ant’s view of the world! You will then send one photo a day to someone in your year, explaining where you took the photo, why you chose this particular photo and, if possible, what is the geographical importance of the photo? The person you send it to will be asked to respond with their thoughts about your chosen shot.
4. One of the activities we normally undertake in Ingleton is a survey of the village, by marking on a map what each building’s function is, ie. is it a shop, or a café or a house? For our fieldtrip, survey your local area and mark on a map the function each building and how many floors it has, to see if there is a pattern to the buildings in your area. As you move around your area, we would also like you to do an environmental quality test. 
5. As you know, AKS Lytham sits on the north bank of the mouth of the River Ribble. During our fieldtrip to Ingleton, we would have taken you to the source of the River Ribble, at Ribblehead. Using Digimaps, you are going to measure how the River Ribble changes in size as it flows downstream and how the erosional features have changed over time.
6. In order to be able to reflect on the social aspect to this ‘residential’ as well as the geography elements, we would like you to create a photo montage or a presentation with photos of where you slept, what meals you cooked, the photos you sent to others and the locations of where you took them. You could also include photos of you collecting data for your local study as well as photos of the buildings you have surveyed to add to your data.