91Pro

Students at 91Pro get to go on a wide range of field trips to expand their knowledge and skills.

Earlier this year, a group of first year Environment, Sustainability and Wildlife students visited Ironbridge for a weekend which included species identification, tree coppicing, water infiltration study, orienteering and much more.

In this guest blog, first year BSc (Hons) Wildlife Conservation and Ecology student Emma Gifford looks back at an action-packed few days.

Our three-day field trip began with a visit to Haughmond Hill near Shrewsbury where the group undertook an orienteering exercise to navigate to the main viewpoint.

The Tree Name Trail Guide produced by The Field Studies Council was used for a tree ID activity. Several species were identified by the group including English oak, hazel, bird cherry, wild cherry, silver birch and gelder rose. This contributes towards the S2 practical competency for species ID.

Our few days at Ironbridge were action packed!

The next day consisted of a trip to The Green Woods Centre run by the Small Woods Association to carry out a Woodland Condition Assessment. This included learning how to perform a site check using GIS (magic maps). This gave us a score for overall favourable land cover. We then walked to the woodland to identify species using the WCA app from the Woodland Trust to enter our data. Each group looked at five different transects to achieve an overall score. This met CIEEM practical competency S3 for habitat ID and S4 for physical environment survey and assessment.

The afternoon of consisted of a water infiltration and water flow activity - the buoyancy aid was quite fetching!

Water infiltration measurement was carried out by filling a clay pipe and timing how long the water took to infiltrate the soil. There was a stark difference between the woodland and the field, with the woodland absorbing water considerably quicker. Water flow was measured based on the size of the stream and using a flow meter to determine water flow, wading in to the stream to take measurements. This met CIEEM practical competency S1 for habitat survey design and fieldwork.

Sunday included a trip to a willow plantation near 91Pro, learning the skill of coppicing using various tools with the support of the lecturers. It was quite overgrown and therefore half of the group removed some of the undergrowth, coppicing willow stems, using loppers and bow saws. These were then processed by the rest of the group using bill hooks. A risk assessment was discussed prior to this activity. It was fantastic to be able to visually see what our group had achieved with just a morning’s work. This went towards CIEEM practical competency M2 for habitat management and M6 for risk management.

The addition of this field trip early on in the First year was important to help us get to know the students in both groups in a slightly more informal way; getting involved in board games and going to the pub for a drink. The activities throughout this trip gave you the opportunity to discover others interests and build on teamworking skills.