Field work Flashcards
Title of physical geography investigation
To investigate the effect of human trampling on the abundance and biodiversity of vegetation on reigate heath, Surrey
Title of human Geography investigation
To investigate the patterns of housing and environmental quality across reigate
What is planning stage of geographical enquiry
- Identifying issues or questions you want to investigate
- Coming up with hypothesis
What is data collection stage
- Safely collecting reliable and accurate data
3 types of sampling strategies for data collection
- Random
- Systematic
- Stratified
What is random sampling
- each member of population has equal chance of being chosen
- random number tables may be used to decide on sample taken
What is systematic sampling
- Samples chosen in a regular way ie every 2m along a transect or asking every 10 people in a questionnaire
What is stratified sampling
- breaking down sample into sub-groups ie for a questionnaire, making sure same amount of residents are asked as non-residents
What is primary data
- Information you have collected yourself
Examples of primary data
- Interview
- Questionnaire
- land use survey
- pedestrian or traffic counts
examples of secondary data
- Census data
- old maps and photographs
- Climate data
- Crime statistics
what is secondary data
- Information that someone has previously collected and made available
Examples of data collection methods
- Quadrat
- Thermometer
- Trudle wheel
- Tally counter
What is discrete data
- Data with clear spaces between values
What is continuous data
- Data that falls into a continuous sequence
Ways to present quantitive data
- Bar chart
- Line graph
- Pie chart
- Desire lines
Advantages of different types of data presentation to talk about
- ‘Clear and easy to visualise’
- ‘Easy to understand/interpret’
- ’ Can see trends over time’
Disadvantages of different types of data presentation to talk about
- ‘Hard to read/interpret specific data’
- ‘Wrong type of data’ (discrete or continuous)
Qualitative data presentation methods
- Word clouds
- Annotated photos
What are word clouds
- If people have been asked to describe certain areas with one word, displaying all these words and making most common answers proportionately larger
What is GIS
- Geographical information systems
- use maps to digitally combine data with individual pieces of data linked to certain areas of the map
What are dispersion graphs
Can show range of a data set, IQR can be calculated from these
What is conclusion
Returning to and answering original question as best you can
What is evaluation
- Evaluation of reliability of conclusion and how it could have been improved
Examples of what to say to improve reliability of data
- larger sample size
- more sampling points
- different type of sampling
- Collect on multiple days/occasions to avoid anomalies
Primary Data collection methods used in reigate heath
- Quadrat sampling % cover of vegetation across footpath
- measuring height of falling species
- Species count
Secondary data used in physical enquiry
- Reigate heath management plan ( explains what species should be present)
- OS maps
Risks of physical enquiry and how were they managed
- Ticks with lime’s disease- wear long trousers and check/brush down legs after being in long grass
- Tripping over Tree stumps- no running and watch your step
How was stratified sampling used in physical enquiry
- Teacher decided site of each data would be collected from
How was systematic sampling used in physical enquiry
- Quadrat placed every metre along path- representative data of whole path and remove bias
How was data presented in physical enquiry
- Kite diagram- showed % vegetation cover across path
- Field sketch- shows key features of site
- Proportional circle map- shows biodiversity across site
- Advantages of Kite diagram
+Useful for displaying changes over distance
+Visually clear and easy to interpret
+Comparisons can easily be made
Disadvantages of Kite diagram
- Visually subjective as scale influences visual effect
- only works with specific range of data
- time consuming to construct by hand
Advantages of proportional circle map
- GIS data plotted onto a map which gives good visual representation of vegetation coverage
Disadvantages of proportional circle map
- Circles can all blur together making it difficult to interpret
Conclusion of Physical enquiry
- % cover of vegetation increases with distance from footpath due to human usage such as dog walking
Evaluation of physical enquiry
- Difficult to exactly find % cover with quadrant
- Only carried out in 1 time of year- more walkers in summer
- Only sampled 20m transect due to time restrictions
- Only collected data from a few small sites on heath- doesn’t represent heath as a whole
Primary data used in Human enquiry
- Environmental quality survey
- Housing quality survey
- Photos
Secondary data used in human enquiry
- Census data (2011)
- Zoopla (house prices)
- Index of multiple deprivation
Risks of human enquiry and how they were managed
- Getting hit by traffic/cars- cross roads at zebra crossing
- Getting lost/abducted- Stay in groups, meet at planned times
What is an environmental quality survey
- Bi-polar analysis assessing attractiveness of various features from a scale of -2 to +2
What is housing quality survey
- giving score to various features of housing quality eg house type, double garage, width of driveway, size of front garden
Data presentation used in Human enquiry
- Bar chart
Positives of bar chart
- Good visual technique for categorical data making it easy to analyse at quick glance
- can easily see trends between environmental quality of streets
Negatives of bar chart
- Using too few categories can mask important trends in data
Conclusion of Human enquiry
- Housing and environmental quality increases with distance from CBD of reigate
- Housing and environmental quality increases with height of land in Reigate
- EG Blanford, Waterloo and High trees road all score highly as on a hill, further from CBD so more space
Evaluation of Human enquiry
- Methods support conclusions to some extent. 10 Streets sampled so good area achieved
- E.Q.S and H.Q.S are very subjective- means different opinions cause inconsistent data, and every house must be rated by same person so it is fair
- Scale of E.Q.S is small (-2 to +2)
- Some streets not represented in data- sample size should increase
- could be supported by deprivation multiple index or census 2011 to provide greater insight
