SIXTH form Geography students saw the subject come to life when they embarked on a five-day field trip in the Lake District.
The trip, from November 18 to 22, is made every two years by Haslingden High School and Sixth Form and this year, 14 students from Years 12 and 13 immersed themselves in learning all about water and carbon, glaciers and towns.
No sooner had they arrived at the remote Blencathra Field Studies Centre, near Threlkend, the students were outside in the forest and learning had begun.
Darren Moore, 17, said: “We did a water and carbon infiltration experiment and we also measured the height of a tree using Pythagoras theorem.”
On the second day the students headed into Keswick for the ‘human’ aspect of their studies creating a land map and noting down the nature of shops – independent retailers or multiples – to determine if it was a clone town.
They then proceeded to mood map, walking from Derwent Water up to the field centre stopping in different areas and selecting words to describe how the place made them feel.
Darren said: “I found a lot of the places made me feel calm, relaxed and tranquil.”
Elsie Haygarth, 16, said: “There was so much green space and as we were walking round every time you looked up there were mountains.
“On the Wednesday we studied glaciation and walked up Bowfell; some of the path was covered with ice.
“We did different experiments along the way including measuring rock sizes to work out glacial movement.”
At the top, as well as eating lunch, they used a clinometer to measure the gradient of different parts of the mountain.
Every day, before they embarked on further study, students spent time in the classroom consolidating what they had learnt the previous day.
All students had to select a topic for further independent study on the Thursday and the data they collected, and their final report, amounts to 20 per cent of their A level grade.
Elsie added: “Doing A level Geography is quite different to GCSE and the trip helped me to understand the subject more.”