Key Stage 3 programme - Woodland workshop (Biology)

In this session, secondary school students explore the coppiced woodland area at Wakehurst - an ideal habitat for woodland ecology studies. The woodland workshop is part of a half day or full day visit that is tailored to suit the needs of your group and planned in detail prior to the visit.

Students identify plants in a woodland area.

Overview

Students investigate biodiversity in the hazel coppice at Wakehurst. They learn about coppicing as a method of sustainable management of woodland and compare the re-growth of hazel rods in different coppice plots.

In this workshop students can also look at the effect of coppicing on herbaceous plants, measure the factors affecting growth e.g. soil, light and predation, and compare meadow and woodland habitats.

Length: Typical workshop - 1.5 - 2 hours.
Group size: 20 students.
Minimum supervision required: 1 adult per 10 students.
Programme cost: Part of a full day visit - fee starts at £180 | Part of a half day visit - fee starts at £130 | See our detailed pricing plan for more information.

Learning outcomes

School visits at Wakehurst support and enhance the curriculum offered in schools. We aim to give students opportunities that are difficult or impossible to create in the school environment.

As teachers ourselves, we design our sessions to match the learning outcomes in the National Curriculum. At the moment, the new government has withdrawn the changes planned for 2010/11 and will be producing new curriculum guidelines. Once they have done that, we will re-visit the learning outcomes for our sessions.

The learning outcomes shown apply to the curriculum as it is at this time. Please note that all our sessions have a cross-curricular approach and are tailored to suit the educational needs of your group. This session offers students the opportunity to learn to:

investigate biodiversity in the hazel coppice
describe coppicing as a method of sustainable management of woodland
compare the re-growth of hazel rods in different coppice plots
notice the effect of coppicing on herbaceous plants
measure the factors affecting growth e.g. soil, light, predation
compare meadow and woodland habitats.

Links with QCA/DfE schemes of work

QCA Science

Unit 7C - Environment and feeding relationships.
Unit 7D - Variation and classification.
Unit 8D - Ecological relationships.

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Browse Key Stage 3 programme

A typical day at Wakehurst is made up of either two activities of approximately 1.5 - 2 hours each, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, or three activities of approximately 1 hour each, two in the morning and one in the afternoon.
We also offer a number of full activity days, designed around a theme. Once you've selected a combination of activities for your group, you can make a school booking to visit Wakehurst by filling in our online form.