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Watch: Introduction to geographical fieldwork

Play the video to watch Ayesha and James learn about human and physical features at Hadrian鈥檚 Wall.

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What do you need to think about?

Ayesha and James are walking towards Hadrian's Wall for their fieldwork

Fieldwork is when you go outside the classroom and find things out for yourself.

When carrying out fieldwork, you will need to think like a geographer. What is the field work? Where and how will you carry it out? And why will you be doing it?

What?

  • observe
  • plan
  • question
  • research

Where?

  • use maps and plans to explain where places are

How?

  • collect and record data to explain what people, places and environments are like
  • stay safe

Why?

  • think about connections between human and physical features
  • present your findings using maps, pictures, charts, diagrams and writing
Ayesha and James are walking towards Hadrian's Wall for their fieldwork
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What are human and physical features?

Fieldwork includes investigating both human and physical features.

Ayesha, James and their teacher are discussing examples of human features

Human features are things that have been built, such as:

  • houses
  • towns
  • cities
  • walls
  • roads
Ayesha, James and their teacher are discussing examples of human features
Ayesha, James and their teacher are discussing examples of physical features

Physical features are anything that has formed naturally and that humans haven鈥檛 made, such as:

  • rivers
  • lakes
  • oceans
  • volcanoes
  • mountains
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What are sources?

Information can be found in both primary and secondary sources.

Fieldwork involves collecting primary sources of information.

A collage with different photos of Hadrian's Wall representing an example of primary sources of information

Primary sources of information are things that were collected at the time, and include:

  • photographs
  • diaries
  • videos
James is holding a guidebook of the local area representing a secondary source of information

Secondary sources of information are usually based on primary sources, such as:

  • magazines
  • textbooks
  • guidebooks
  • newspapers
James is holding a guidebook of the local area representing a secondary source of information
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Take a look at some features and sources

Examples of human and physical features, and primary and secondary sources of information:

Image gallerySkip image gallerySlide 1 of 6, James points at the hill where Hadrian's Wall was built, Human and physical features Hadrian鈥檚 Wall is a human feature, built on top of a hill - which is a physical feature.
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Activities

Activity 1: Think like a geographer!

Cartoon of two pupils wearing hi-vis vests. They are outside. One is holding an iPad.

Draw a cartoon image of yourself as 鈥榞eographer鈥 and annotate it with your geography toolkit.

  • What would be in your geographer鈥檚 kit bag?
  • What skills would you be using?
  • What kind of fieldwork questions would you ask?
Cartoon of two pupils wearing hi-vis vests. They are outside. One is holding an iPad.
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Activity 2: Quiz 鈥 Geographical fieldwork

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