Human Fieldwork

Question 1

Human fieldwork title

Answer 1

Investigate climate change mitigation in Purbeck

Question 2

Human fieldwork aim/ hypothesis

Answer 2

Community of Purbeck are actively supporting the use of renewable energy

Question 3

Why we chose Purbeck for human fieldwork enquiry

Answer 3

Proximity- close to where we were staying and easily accessible
Large population- can survey large sample of population to get more accurate representation of the whole town
Popular tourist sight- lots of people around so safe
Interest- proposed offshore wind farm didn’t get planning permission which suggests community are actively aware of pros and cons of switching to renewable energy
Is an AONB (area of natural beauty) which creates potential conflict in installing renewable energy which we wanted to explore

Question 4

Location of human fieldwork

Answer 4

District of Purbeck, specifically town of Swanage, Dorset located south coast of England by the English Channel

Question 5

2 risks of human enquiry and how we mitigated them

Answer 5

Road accident e.g getting hit by car- take care crossing roads, stay on pavements when possible, only cross at traffic lights when there’s a green man, stay in groups of at least 3, have mobile phone easily accessible to get help if needed

Kidnapped- stay in groups of at least 3, staff always nearby, mobile phone easily accessible to get help if needed

Question 6

Mitigation meaning

Answer 6

Make something less severe/ reduce its risk

Question 7

3 key supporting theories/ concepts for our human hypothesis

Answer 7

NIMBYISM- many local resident want to help mitigate change but don’t want offshore wind farms etc due to noise pollution, ruining views etc

AONB- Swanage is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty so activity is restricted as the area is protected by UK government for its countryside (explains why there are no offshore wind farms)
The Navitus Bay offshore wind farm was rejected but would be the worlds largest operating wind farm

Climate Change Act 2008- legally commits UK to becoming net- zero on carbon emissions by 2050
Includes 2035 ban on sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles (we expect to see an increase in number of hybrids/ electric vehicles)

Question 8

What is the population of Swanage like (age groups)

Answer 8

Very high proportion of elderly people

Question 9

What 2 restrictions/ aims did the 2008 Climate Change Act make the UK put in place

Answer 9

Will become net- zero on carbon emissions by 2050
Ban on sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles from 2035

Question 10

How many methods did we use to collect data

Answer 10

1 primary
1 secondary

Question 11

Methodology for collecting primary data (questionnaire)

Answer 11

We carried out a questionnaire to locals to understand whether they supported offshore/ onshore wind farms, solar farms, owned electric vehicles/ hybrids and their opinion on what was being done in the area to promote the use of renewable energy

First we asked the closed, qualifying question: ‘are you a local resident’ to ensure we only asked people who lived there and not tourists so that our results weren’t influenced by tourists views. We also asked people on their age group and gender to be able to include this in our data analysis

We then asked a total of 8 closed and 2 open questions including ‘do you have solar panels on your property’ (closed question) and ‘describe any positive changes/ actions you have seen in your area towards using renewable sources of energy’ (open question)

We carried out the questionnaire across 3 days from 26th September- 2nd October and interviewed a total of 323 people

We used a random stratified sampling method (yet it was still slightly biased due to the elderly nature of Dorset’s population)

Once we had collected all our data we used a large spreadsheet to create pie charts and bar graphs of the quantitative data from the closed questions to be able to analyse and prove/ disprove our hypothesis

Question 12

Sample size for human enquiry

Answer 12

323 people

Question 13

What type of data did we obtain from our questionnaire

Answer 13

Mainly Quantitative (from closed questions)
Some qualitative (from open questions)

Question 14

2 types of style of question we used in questionnaire

Answer 14

Closed (provides quantitative data)
Open (provides qualitative data)

Question 15

Which type of data could we quote in our analysis

Answer 15

Qualitative from the open questions

Question 16

What type of data could we put into bar and pie charts

Answer 16

Quantitative

Question 17

What type of method was our questionnaire

Answer 17

Random stratified

Question 18

1 constraint we were under in completing questionnaire

Answer 18

Time (only had 1 hr and was across 3 different days so most children were at school)

Question 19

Was our human fieldwork hypothesis proven or disproven and why

Answer 19

Partly disproven

60% of people support offshore solar and wind farms

However…
Only 18% have solar panels on their property
Only 14% have EVs/ Hybrids
Most people against onshore wind farms

Question 20

How did we present our primary data

Answer 20

Closed questions (quantitative data) using pie charts and bar graphs including comparative bar charts and stacked bar charts to separate our data between different age groups and gender

Question 21

Positives of primary data presentation (pie charts and bar charts)

Answer 21

Comparative bar charts and stacked bar charts compare difference in support for renewable energy between different ages and gender
Visually represent data to quantify how much support there was for the use of renewable energy
Excel generated charts digitally so no risk of human error influencing our results and analysis so very accurate representation of data recorded

Question 22

Negatives of primary data collection (pie charts and bar charts)

Answer 22

Didn’t include qualitative data including responses to open question which provided key points that linked to our aim and that we underused in our analysis
Stacked bar charts can be confusing to understand and interpret

Question 23

4 key findings from primary data (quantitative)

Answer 23

60% people supported offshore wind and solar

80% people don’t have any electric vehicle charge point at home or work
18% people have solar panels on their property
14% people have EVs/ hybrids

Question 24

2 key quotes from qualitative primary data

Answer 24

(Positive changes/ actions seen to switching to use of renewable energy in area)
‘I have seen more solar panels on roofs’

(Biggest challenges to switching to use of renewable energy in area)
‘Cost of living crisis’
‘Affecting tourism- leds to people not wanting to visit’

Question 25

Problems with our questionnaire

Answer 25

Didn’t include enough people at a younger age
Limited time
No guarantee no tourists were asked despite qualifying question at start
Some people may have answered more than once

Question 26

What did we find from our secondary data where we counted the properties with solar panels from different satellite images then calculated a % and mean across different photos

Answer 26

10% properties have solar panels

Question 27

Why our secondary data (counting solar panels) was likely unaccurate

Answer 27

Solar panels easily mistaken for conservatories
Didn’t include every single property in Swanage, only a mean
Images not up to date so solar panels may have been installed since
Miscounting solar panels