Fieldwork and Experiential Learning

We consider fieldwork an essential part of your undergraduate training, and through it we encourage you to integrate theory and practice and help you to develop observation, monitoring and analytical skills. The field situation, away from the cosy comforts of the classroom or library, is the perfect place to test team-working and negotiation skills and to develop confidence in problem-solving activities.

The emphasis early in Year 1 is on using the local (City of Chester) and regional (NW England) human and physical environments, while in Years 2 and 3 we offer opportunities to travel further afield to work in social and environmental settings that are very different to those of the UK. Whether you end up studying in a 'Fair Trade' coffee plantation on the side of a volcano in Costa Rica, measuring the rate of retreat of a glacier in Norway or conducting a survey of crime perception and reality within the city of Chester, our overarching aim is to instill in you a fascination for natural and/or human environments - and an understanding of the social, political, economic and natural processes that have made them as they are and shape their future.

Opportunities in Year 1

The urban and rural environments in and around Chester provide a distinctive ‘laboratory' for group and individual fieldwork projects. Examples include studying pollution and microclimate in the city centre, investigations at the slave trade museum in Liverpool and analysing industrial change and regeneration on Deeside. Single Honours Geography students and Combined Honours Natural Hazard Management Students enjoy a weeklong residential fieldtrip to South Devon, while Combined Honours Geography students spend four days at the Centre for Alternative Technology in mid-Wales. By way of introduction to the challenges of asylum and refuge the International Development Studies students spend several days researching Black Ethnic Minority (BEM) community groups in Liverpool.

Opportunities in Year 2

We continue to make full use of the distinctive opportunities for fieldwork in NW England and N Wales, but from Easter onwards also present the opportunity to take on more diverse challenges as an integral part of your degree. A distinctive feature of degree work at Chester, and one that is rated very highly by employers, is the requirement for you to complete an experiential (work-based) learning module during the summer term of your second year. This not only counts as one module towards your degree, but also provides a vocational element to your CV and reference when you graduate.

Students elect to do their six-week placements in many different ways. Some negotiate their own placements (e.g. working as a classroom assistant in a local school, or as a field technician for an environment consultancy or local council), while others ask the University to arrange a placement for them through its extensive network of employer links. Around 10-15 students each year join our both of our fieldtrips to Spain and New York which counts as an experiential learning module, or travel further afield to developing countries to work for one of a number of development organisations with which the University has close links.

Finally, during the summer vacation between Years 2 and 3 the department runs an expedition to Norway. This optional two-week trip is aimed at students seeking to collect data for a final year dissertation on a glacial/climate change/cold region hazards topic.

Opportunities in Year 3

In Year 3 our Natural Hazard Management students spend a field week studying geophysical hazards (earthquake, volcano) around Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples, while the International Development Studies students benefit from a unique opportunity to spend four days in Geneva at the Offices of the United Nations. All other fieldwork in Year 3 is linked to the optional specialist modules that make up the different degree programmes, including dissertation project work. Some modules and dissertation projects have a heavy field orientation, others have far less - so the amount of fieldwork that you do depends on your interests and, probably, what you plan to do when you graduate.  We give you help and guidance in making these selections mid-way through Year 2.