On Tuesday 25 September and Thursday 4 October we went on our Geography field trips, to collect primary data for our A Level coursework. The days started off with early coach trips to Studland Bay and Oxford, followed by us independently exploring the relevant sites for data collection.
We were all doing different investigations and it was really interesting to see the different collection methods used by everyone.
I chose to investigate the influence of human activity on soil carbon and, after collecting data at Studland Bay, I then arranged to go to Reading University to analyse the samples. The method involved the burning of soil, measuring the loss in mass and then calculating the amount of carbon within it. I really enjoyed working in the laboratories as there was a lot of new equipment that I got to operate (such as the furnace) and I learnt a lot about safety within labs. I got some very accurate data which will be very useful for my data analysis.
