News Amersham Field Studies Centre Trip 11.09.2020

On Tuesday, Upper Sixth A Level biologists visited the Amersham Field Studies Centre to gain practical experience of the ecological field techniques covered in the OCR A Level Biology course. 

The students had an opportunity to develop their field work skills and put into practice techniques including interrupted belt transect sampling and quadrat sampling. This helped them to find the effect of human trampling around paths through grassland – giving the girls food for thought about how our behaviour affects the natural environment. The second session involved reviewing woodland management strategies: exploring the relationships between abiotic factors and plant life abundance in both coppiced and thinned woodland. The highlight of the day was definitely finding a baby squirrel which had fallen from a tree; the girls hoped it was reunited with its family!

The students followed up by applying statistical tests to their data and analysing the significance of their data, with the girls back in the classroom writing up their investigation and discussing the conclusions.