In Semester A of level 2, there is an annual field trip to Boggle Hole, Robin Hood’s Bay, North Yorkshire. This 5-day residential course at the Boggle Hole Youth Hostel provides Conservation Biology and Animal Behaviour Science students with the invaluable opportunity to collect and analyse data on various aspects of seashore ecology and animal behaviour on a range of species not normally encountered in the teaching environment at Riseholme. As well as working hard there is always time for searching rock pools and for fossil ammonites on the foreshore. There is a prize for the best find of the week!

Exercises include monitoring of bats, a survey of birds feeding on the foreshore, assessment of invertebrate biodiversity, and a study into the shell preferences of hermit crabs. Some of the data collected during the trip are analysed in the classroom on site whereas other data form the basis of assignments completed back at Riseholme.

Working in groups the students also devise their own project, collect the data and analyse them so they can give a 10-minute presentation on the last evening. All this in 24 hours! In 2010 projects included: examining the relationships between relative abundance of limpets and barnacles on the foreshore; factors affecting the direction of limpet shells relative to the sun and tide; the role of water movement on the ability of hermit crabs to detect potential food (see graph for results showing that many more crabs move against the flow of water to a food source, presumably because the water is bringing dissolved chemicals to them); and the factors determining shell preference in hermit crabs.

Aside from development of academic skills, the field trip also allows the students to interact with each other and with their lecturers in a different environment. Everyone gets to know each other, which helps develop team working and other inter-personal skills. Although all concerned agree that it is hard work, the students and staff have a great time and find it a worthwhile experience. Most level 3 students would happily go again if they could!

Staff and Students on the 2010 Boggle Hole trip.