Year 12 Geography Dorset Fieldtrip

Year 12 Geographers in Swanage

Year 12 geographers travelled to Dorset on Tuesday 25th April till Friday 28th April 2023 to complete their 4-day fieldwork, collecting primary data for their NEA coursework. We arrived in the beautiful resort town of Swanage in the early afternoon and collected beach data before settling in at Swanage Youth hostel. The youth hostel is on a steep hill overlooking Swanage Bay with amazing views of the coastline.

On the Wednesday, we all spent the day at Studland bay sand dunes, the only sand dune system in the UK with a W-E alignment. The location enabled students to collect data from all stages of the sand dune system, so that data could be collected on plant species and abundance, plant height, pH, soil moisture, wind speed and air temperature.

On the Thursday we split into two groups, one group travelling to the northern end of Chesil Beach to West Bexington, Burton Bradstock and Abbotsbury, and the other group visiting the Isle of Portland, Chesil Beach (where the spit leaves the mainland) and Weymouth. Students were investigating the changing beach characteristics from west to east along the Dorset coast.

The fieldtrip was the first time students have been able to stay away on a residential since the Covid pandemic. The students were brilliant and everyone had a brilliant time. Swanage youth hostel looked after us really well and we will be returning there again next year!