Southampton Geography Trip

Year 10 GCSE Geography students immersed themselves in human Geography fieldwork in Southampton this week. 

Students visited different wards of the city to investigate how the quality of life varies within Southampton. Students undertook a wide range of primary data collection methods, for example, environmental quality surveys, crime prevention mapping and questionnaires, some using GIS software Survey 123 to capture the data.

Students will be examined on this in Paper 2 of their Geography GCSE.  Well done to all the students who took part in this research for representing the school so well.  

Here is a summary of the day by India and Phoebe 

Our first stop was Bassett. This is where we were taught different types of primary research and collected our own information in our fieldwork. We investigated different aspects, such as environmental quality and housing/ building type to assess the quality of life. We did this by evaluating the cleanliness and appearance. We also had the chance to approach the public and ask them to fill in a short questionnaire, asking them about their experiences of where they live.  

  For lunch we stopped off at  West Quay shopping Centre in the city centre, this is where we had a break from fieldwork and we all got to treat ourselves to a lunch of our choice - we were lucky enough to be given an extra spring role with ours! After lunch we headed towards Bevois to complete the second part of our research. We completed the same questionnaires but for Bevois this time, to get a point of comparison to answer our enquiry question which was: How and why does the quality of life vary in two wards in Southampton? 

This whole experience gave us the confidence to complete our own geographical research and gives us an appreciation for the area we live in. 

We would like to thank our teachers who took us on the trip and gave amazing support and advice when we had any questions, especially Miss Walter’s who gave us a personal account of life in Southampton and was an excellent tour guide of the city.