Category: Field trip

Ecology and Conservation second-year fieldwork

Applied Ecology and Conservation Field Course module

As part of the second year Applied Ecology and Conservation Field Course module, we visited a range of local wildlife sites, such as the British Wildlife Centre, Waterhall, Knepp Estate, Rye Nature Reserve, Blue Reef Hastings and the Hastings Fisherman’s Protection Society. The module very well attended and the students continued to build a diverse skill set. Along the way there were some interesting talks on ecological processes as well as surveys and management experiences. Opportunities for further involvement in the form of volunteering or final year projects have also arisen and these offer excellent opportunities for employment. One of the highlights was the Knepp bird ringing day were we had the opportunity to get close to some amazing birds thanks to Penny, Josie and Dave.

Yellowhammer bird
Yellowhammer (photo: Zoe Lawson)
A bullfinch sitting on a hand
Bullfinch (photo: Zoe Lawson)

Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems module

This module introduces the principles of marine and freshwater ecology, examining a range of aquatic habitats and investigating ecosystem processes and structures. It investigates the relationships between freshwater and marine habitats and determine how one system influences the other.

The module ended on a high, with a really interesting residential field trip to Slapton Ley in Devon. The three-day field trip led by Dr Neil Crooks and Dr Anja Rott was a great success. Students engaged with a range of aquatic sampling techniques, being able to demonstrate everything they had learnt over the past year. We found ourselves in some truly beautiful locations with a range of interesting organisms being observed on every trip. The students who attended were really engaging, even becoming rather competitive as the poster presentations approached. The quality of work was high and we could not have asked for a better end to a really enjoyable module.

Dr Anja Rott collecting samples in a river
Dr Anja Rott
A Cushion Star starfish on a piece of rock
Cushion Star starfish
Students looking at samples standing on sandy river bed
Study an Ecology and Conservation degree

Laura RubyLeave a comment
A frog in the grass

Froglife workshop and fieldwork

In November students went along to Froglife’s ‘Discovering dew ponds: Amphibian habitat management training workshops’. These sessions were run by the wonderful Jennifer Hooper and William Johanson. Split into two sessions, the first covered amphibian ID and a habitat management theory session. This included sessions on how to identify many of the amphibian species native to the UK, such as the smooth newt, and their eggs. The students were also tasked with coming up with ideas on how to make example landscapes more amphibian-friendly.

The second session was more hands-on! Despite the heavy rain, the group worked on a pond in Stanmer Park that had been struggling to hold water. This was likely due to damage to the liner underneath, so a lot of stomping was done to compact the sediment beneath the liner to prevent any water from leaking into the sediment below. These workshops were really helpful to those studying or going on to study our final year ecological consultancy Ecological Impact Assessment module, as it gives an insight into what conditions amphibians need and what their habitats might look like.

Pond in Stanmer Park

Laura RubyLeave a comment
Corina Ciocan

Meet Dr Corina Ciocan

A marine biologist, Corina’s expertise is in functional ecotoxicology, focusing on biological responses of marine organisms to environmental stressors.

What drew you to teaching your subject?

I always lived by the ocean and I was absolutely fascinated by the marine environment. After working for more than 25 years in the research sector (in various Marine Research institutes and University groups) decided it’s a good time to bring my research into the class room and give the students the chance to have a very hands on experience of the marine exploration.

How do you combine teaching with your professional life/ work in the field?

I like to teach Marine Biology in ways that place the experiment and practice at the centre of everything I explain, for there can be no successful teaching without creating an active learning environment.

Continue reading “Meet Dr Corina Ciocan” →

Laura RubyLeave a comment
Northern Ireland coastline across the water

Winners of our Northern Ireland field trip photo contest

As international travel was restricted this year due to COVID, in April our second year Geography and Environment students travelled to Northern Ireland for a week-long field trip. The aim of these longer residential field trips is to let students practice the field skills they’ve been learning under real-world conditions, and to support them in developing and undertaking their own research projects. But we also know that students spend field trips taking lots of photos to share with friends, family and social media – so this year we decided run a photo contest too!

There were three categories for the contest, each with a prize of a £50 National Book Token. Here are this year’s winning photos, plus some background info from the students who took them: Continue reading “Winners of our Northern Ireland field trip photo contest” →

Stephanie ThomsonLeave a comment
Group of people about to get on a boat

Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority boat trip

MRes Ecology and Conservation student Sarah George, really enjoyed the day spent on the Sussex IFCA boat (Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority), as part of the Ecotoxicology module.

“The boat trip with the IFCA was a real education and I’m so grateful for this opportunity.  I have not previously experienced aquatic sampling and just being able to be part of the process and see how things were done was fantastic – even down to the clear sequential labelling of samples and being able to visualise how large a sample actually was (much smaller than I’d thought).

Three people on a boat
View from the side of a boat in the water
Group of people about to get on a boat
Person with a line into the water from a boat

Simple things like rinsing the filter with clean water rather than seawater make so much more sense when you’re there as you can visualise how this would alter the sample you’d just collected.  Setting up and operating the sediment grab is something you can only really appreciate by doing it, the idea is simple but actually getting it to work needs hands on experience.   Again, being able to see how the sediment varied from site to site and even from one side of the boat to the other, told a really strong story.

Continue reading “Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority boat trip” →

Stephanie ThomsonLeave a comment
students by the sea on beach

Investigating coastal change and exploring Bronze Age burials

Fieldwork is at the heart of geography as a discipline – here are a couple of examples of trips we took our students on we took in November.

East Sussex coastline (first year)

In early November, Level 4 students underwent an exciting field trip to investigate coastal change along the South Coast led by Dr. Gergious Maniatias and Magda Grove. As part of the Academic Learning and Field Skills module, students created a series of beach profiles analysing grain size distribution along Brighton beach and the National Trust’s amazing Cuckmere Haven.

Continue reading “Investigating coastal change and exploring Bronze Age burials” →

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Group of students on the hill over Hastings

Geographies of placemaking, inclusion, regeneration and violence in Hastings

We ran our first-year undergraduate Geography Earth and Environment field skills trips at the beginning of November. All of our first-year students participated in three field trip days – Human Geography, Physical Geography and Environmental Geography. I co-led the Human Geography day with my colleague Dr Paul Gilchrist. Continue reading “Geographies of placemaking, inclusion, regeneration and violence in Hastings” →

Stephanie ThomsonLeave a comment
Exterior shot of the Admiral Duncan pub in Soho

Investigating how LGBTQ communities influence urban space

Geography and Environment students visited Soho (London) for a field trip investigating how sex, sexuality, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer (LGBTQ) communities influence urban space – and are influenced by urban space in turn.

Our students spent their time in the area making ethnographic observations of the streets and the built environment. They considered questions such as:

  1. Where are sex and sexuality present in space?
  2. How do space and place produce a sense of what ‘gay’ is?
  3. What does it mean to be an ‘LGBTQ space’?

Continue reading “Investigating how LGBTQ communities influence urban space” →

Stephanie ThomsonLeave a comment