virtual fieldwork environmental quality survey

An environmental quality survey ( or EQS) is a popular method of fieldwork. It involved measuring different aspects of the urban area by analysing a series of photographs from in and around Manchester ( although you could easily subsidize your own photo’s from your own local town or city). This GCSE focussed lesson takes students on a virtual journey from Manchester’s CBD to the urban rural fringe, showing them buildings and homes from along a transect. The students have to analyse the photographs carefully in order to make decisions on the appearence, safety and amount of green open space etc and fill in the pre-designed bi-polar grid accordingly. They can them choose to display their results on a radial graph ( template provided) or make a bar chart. The lesson ends with an exam questions, and gets them to evaluate the methods used to gather their primary data.

This lesson would be good at KS3 to prepare them for fieldwork requirements of GCSE, or as a preparation lesson prior to EQS fieldwork at GCSE.