Hear from one of our students about their field trip to Epping Forest!

This September as part of Biology A Level we travelled to Epping Forest Field Centre to learn and practise some key skills for gaining and evaluating data for our biodiversity topic. First we practised pond dipping- taking a small volume of water from a pond and identifying the species present. As a group we identified 17 newts! Our trip also placed emphasis on the ‘leave no trace’ idea, this is an ethical step biologists must take meaning they cannot leave rubbish, trample plants or take any of the site being observed with them, it must be as though they were never there.

In the afternoon we learnt the different methods of abundance used when using quadrats - this extended our GCSE knowledge where we wrote up methods about using quadrats but had not used them in reality. It was a fun activity and we evaluated the success of various methods within using quadrats- another key skill of the A Level is identifying limitations within a method.

Finally we experimented using random sampling, where we used a random number generation to choose an area to quadrat, we identified common species in the area such as braken, rush and brambles. This was an amusing activity as we had to climb through some very overgrown ferns to reach our areas to analyse.

As a whole our trip to Epping Forest was very fun and interesting and helped us to understand the technique we write about in practise. We gained skills in method writing, evaluation, practical skills and all left as better biologists than we entered.

Saskia, Year 12