Engaging Fieldwork Across Land and Sea
Through immersive, hands-on fieldwork, students investigate freshwater, marine, and terrestrial environments, while developing essential skills in sampling techniques, data collection and analysis.
Terrestrial:
- Hands-on exploration of ecological concepts in diverse natural settings.
- Cover core ecological principles and sampling techniques, applying this learning through field investigations in heathlands, forests, and freshwater environments.
- Explore ecological succession across different habitats, examine species diversity and adaptations, and investigate human impacts such as agriculture, conservation practices, and grazing.
Freshwater:
- Investigate ecological succession on a Hydrosere, exploring the progressive changes in plant communities and habitat development in freshwater environments, with links to biodiversity and ecosystem dynamics.
- Assess water quality in mountain streams using kick sampling to study freshwater invertebrates, key indicators of ecosystem health. The same water is used by the local whisky distillery, allowing us to explore the impact on the surrounding flora and fauna.
Marine:
- Investigate marine zonation by examining the distribution of seaweed indicator species and other marine life along our rocky coastline.
- Study limpets to explore variations in morphology between lower and upper shore zones of this keystone species.
