Fieldwork enquiry: from question to conclusion
Fieldwork is not a day out with a clipboard. It is a small research project with a question at the top and an honest judgement at the bottom.
Part of your national curriculum
- Geographical skills and fieldwork: Use fieldwork in contrasting locations to collect, analyse and draw conclusions from geographical data
- Geographical skills and fieldwork: Interpret and analyse a range of quantitative and qualitative data, including statistical data on trends and relationships between geographical phenomena
Lesson overview
What you'll learn in this lesson
Plan, carry out and evaluate a geographical enquiry using primary data.
Key learning points
- • Writing a question you can actually answer
- • Primary and secondary data
- • Sampling and reliability
- • Conclusion and evaluation
This lesson at a glance
- 25 minutes
- 17 parts to scroll through
- 4 quick checks
- Marked quiz at the end
- Gentle pace: short sittings with pauses
Words to know
Scroll down — the lesson carries on below
Watch & discover
Part 1 of 17
Watch first
Fieldwork enquiry: from question to conclusion
An English teaching video on this topic from Evans Woolfe Media. Watch it, then scroll down for the lesson.
In a nutshell
Plan, carry out and evaluate a geographical enquiry using primary data.
Learning cycle
Part 2 of 17
Learning cycle 1 of 2
Part 1 · Writing a question you can actually answer
A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.
Explore the idea
Part 3 of 17
Learn
Writing a question you can actually answer
A good enquiry question is specific, measurable, local and linked to theory. 'Is the river good?' fails. 'Does the velocity of the River Dove increase downstream, as the Bradshaw model predicts?' works, because it names the place, the variable, the direction and the theory it tests. Write a hypothesis you could disprove.
Explore the idea
Part 4 of 17
Learn
Primary and secondary data
Primary data is collected by you: river measurements, pedestrian counts, environmental quality surveys, questionnaires, field sketches, photographs. Secondary data comes from someone else: census figures, OS maps, rainfall records, council reports. Strong enquiries combine both, using secondary data for context and primary data to answer the question directly.
Quick check
Part 5 of 17
Quick check
Which is primary data?
Quick check
Part 6 of 17
Quick check
Systematic sampling means
Learning cycle
Part 7 of 17
Learning cycle 2 of 2
Part 2 · Sampling and reliability
A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.
Reset break
Part 8 of 17
Pause
That's sitting 1 of 2 done
Stretch, get a drink, look out of the window. There is no timer and nothing is counting down — your place is saved, so you can come back in five minutes or tomorrow.
Explore the idea
Part 9 of 17
Learn
Sampling and reliability
Random sampling avoids bias but may miss areas. Systematic sampling, such as every 100 metres, gives even coverage and is easy to justify. Stratified sampling ensures each group or land use is represented in proportion. Reliability improves with repeat readings, an agreed method between everyone collecting, calibrated equipment and recording the weather and time, since both change results.
Explore the idea
Part 10 of 17
Learn
Conclusion and evaluation
The conclusion answers the original question directly using your own figures, and states whether the hypothesis is supported, partly supported or rejected. The evaluation identifies specific weaknesses and, crucially, says what effect each had on the conclusion: 'measuring velocity with a float over 5 metres is affected by wind, which may have overstated speed at site 3 and weakened the downstream trend'. Naming a limitation without its consequence earns almost nothing.
Quick check
Part 11 of 17
Quick check
A top-level evaluation must include
Quick check
Part 12 of 17
Quick check
Which enquiry question is best?
Explore the idea
Part 13 of 17
Worked example
Worked answer: evaluate the reliability of your data collection (6 marks)
One weakness was that pedestrian counts were taken once at each site on a single weekday morning, so a market or bus timetable could have inflated one figure and the pattern may not represent a typical week (2). A second was that the environmental quality survey used personal scores, so different group members judged 'litter' differently, making comparison between sites less consistent (2). Both weaknesses reduce confidence in the exact figures but not the overall trend, which was strong and repeated across all six sites, so the conclusion still stands while the precise values should be treated cautiously (2).
Challenge round
Part 14 of 17
Game · Sort it
Which of these are true?
Drag each card into the right column. Tap a card first if dragging is fiddly.
True
Not true
Challenge round
Part 15 of 17
Game · Fill the gaps
Finish the sentences
Choose the word that belongs in each gap.
A good ____ question is specific, measurable, local and linked to theory.
____ data is collected by you: river measurements, pedestrian counts, environmental quality surveys, questionnaires, field sketches, photographs.
Strong enquiries combine both, using secondary data for context and primary data to answer the ____ directly.
Mastery quiz
Part 16 of 17
Marked quiz
End of lesson quiz: Fieldwork enquiry: from question to conclusion
4 questions, marked with the reasoning shown. No timer.
1. Which is primary data?
2. Systematic sampling means
3. A top-level evaluation must include
4. Which enquiry question is best?
Lesson round-up
Part 17 of 17
Lesson round-up
Ready when you are
Quiz score
Not sat
Games
Not played
Points this lesson
0
Best run
0 in a row
Luna: 0 out of 4 on the practice checks. Only if you feel up to it — one more?
Ask LunaDo the work
Your written work for this lesson
This is the part you'd do in your book at school. Pick the pieces below, write here or on paper, and photograph anything you draw or work out.
Flooding on the River Calder
The town of Harbrook sits where a steep valley opens onto a flat floodplain. In December 2015, 120 mm of rain fell in 36 hours onto ground that was already saturated. The river rose 2.4 m in five hours, and 380 homes and 54 businesses flooded. Two roads and the railway closed for eleven days.
Geographers pointed to physical causes — steep slopes, impermeable rock, heavy rainfall — and human causes: moorland drained upstream, new housing built on the floodplain, and drains designed for smaller storms.
Since then the town has planted 40 hectares of woodland upstream, built leaky dams in small streams, and raised flood walls to 1.8 m. In the storm of 2020 the peak river level was 0.3 m lower and 40 homes flooded, not 380.
Written for Good Learning Co.
Reading questions
- List two physical and two human causes of the 2015 flood.
- Explain how planting woodland upstream lowers the river's peak level.
- Using the figures, judge how successful the scheme has been. Quote data in your answer.
Case study notes
WritingWrite the place, the facts and the figures from this lesson so you can revise them later.
Half a page
Explain answer
WritingAnswer in full sentences, giving causes and effects. Use one figure or place name as evidence.
8–10 sentences
Map or sketch
DiagramDraw the map, cross-section or field sketch with a key, title and labels, then photograph it.
1 map with a key
Data work
Working outPlot your figures as a graph on paper and write one sentence about the pattern.
1 graph + 1 sentence
Saved as you type.
Part 1 of 17 · Watch & discover
How this is going
- Not looked at yet
Use fieldwork in contrasting locations to collect, analyse and draw conclusions from geographical data
- Not looked at yet
Interpret and analyse a range of quantitative and qualitative data, including statistical data on trends and relationships between geographical phenomena