Brought our Sec 1 students to Dairy Farm Nature Park for our Geographical Investigation (GI) once more, building on our previous visit last year. Documenting some of the refinements made to the GI package here!
Taking inspiration from Madeline's NLC sharing on using Survey123 to structure student's fieldwork experience, I sought to design a meaningful learning experience with our student profile in mind. My objective was to engage our students in the data collection process, while also getting them to analyse primary data and draw conclusions.
Data Collection
Given our inquiry question - How do human activities affect our natural environment?, students were tasked to collect the following data at various checkpoints (see below):
Temperature (°C)
Wind speed (m/s)
Noise level (dB)
The five checkpoints reflect varying degrees of human modification. For example, Checkpoint 2 is located at the beginning of the Wallace Trail, where there is a concrete path devoid of tree cover, whereas Checkpoint 4 is situated further along the trail and is surrounded by trees.
<<< When students access the survey form, the system automatically captures the date, time, and location.
<<< To facilitate post-fieldwork analysis (more on this later!), students were also tasked to capture a photograph at the checkpoint.
<<< By including the group number, we can potentially identify if anomalous data was provided by a specific group or groups, such as when their recordings consistently deviate from others due to human error.
Data Analysis & Drawing Conclusions
The data collected by the cohort was represented visually with the use of heat maps (created by teacher). Students' photos were also incorporated into the slide deck to facilitate in-class data analysis.
This exercise enabled students to substantiate their field observations - that it was more cooler when they went deeper into the trail (where there is more shade by trees) - with the primary data collected (i.e. photographs + temperature readings from weather tracker). The students' involvement in the data collection and sense-making process supported by Survey123 promoted greater student autonomy and ownership over their learning.
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