KS4 Woodland investigation – biodiversity and conservation
Bring your pupils to Wakehurst to see conservation in action and carry out fieldwork in an inspiring ancient woodland.
Level
Duration
Allocated space
Recommended dates
Pupils use a variety of fieldwork techniques to investigate the plants found in the coppiced areas. They observe and record the environmental changes which take place at different stages in the coppicing cycle and their effects on plant and animal life.
Learning outcomes
We design our sessions to match the learning outcomes in the national curriculum. Our sessions have a cross-curricular approach and are tailored to suit the educational needs of your group.
We aim to give pupils opportunities to work scientifically in areas that are difficult or impossible to create in the school or college environment.
This session offers pupils the opportunity to:
- Investigate biodiversity in the hazel coppice.
- Identify woodland species of plant.
- Describe coppicing as a method of sustainable management of woodland.
- Compare the re-growth of hazel rods in different coppice plots.
- Investigate the effect of coppicing on herbaceous plants using random sampling.
- Measure the abiotic and biotic factors affecting growth e.g. soil, light, predation.
Curriculum Links
This KS4 visit supports and enhances the curriculum offered in schools and colleges.
Biology
- Levels of organisation within an ecosystem
- Some abiotic and biotic factors which affect communities; the importance of interactions between organisms in a community.
- How materials cycle through abiotic and biotic components of ecosystems.
- The role of microorganisms (decomposers) in the cycling of materials through an ecosystem.
- Organisms are interdependent and are adapted to their environment.
- The importance of biodiversity.
- Methods of identifying species and measuring distribution, frequency and abundance of species within a habitat.
- Positive and negative human interactions with ecosystems.
Links to GCSE Biology specifications
- OCR Gateway Science Biology A B 4.1 Ecosystems.
- OCR Twenty First Century Science Suite - Biology B Chapter B3: Living together – food and ecosystems.
- Edexcel Topic 9 – Ecosystems and material cycles.
- AQA 4.7 Ecology.
