Surveyor of All I See
Geography Field Trip – Seef Mall – Year 7
On Wednesday 6 February 2013, the 7C class headed to Seef Mall to test the hypothesis:
‘Seef Mall is a popular place to shop’.
Liam Pyers 7C reports “When we arrived, we all did a Car Park survey counting all the spaces that were filled, counting the types of vehicles that were there, and working out what country they were from. We then did a traffic count for five minutes, counting the number and types of cars arriving at Seef Mall.
We sketched and photographed an area in the car park and did an EQS – a survey of the environmental quality outside Seef Mall Our observations revealed that the area was quiet and tidy but we all noticed that the area smelt of tobacco!
On entering the Mall, each group was given a specific area to conduct a pedestrian count – counting the number of people walking by and estimating their ages. We drew maps from overhead and from ground level and interviewed people to gauge their shopping habits on this particular day. It was interesting to hear where the shoppers planned to go and what they intended to buy.
Once we had completed our tasks, all groups met with Mrs Stewart and Mr Rowark at Starbucks for a headcount and then journeyed back to school.
Our excursion to Seef Mall was very interesting indeed as part of our Geography Unit focuses on knowing the difference between convenience, comparison and specialist shops”.
Geography Field Trip – Manama Souq – Year 9
Students in Year 9 recently undertook a trip to the Manama Souq to conduct different geographical surveys in order to evaluate if the Souq needs to be redeveloped. A small part of the area has already been redeveloped and our job was to see if this was beneficial to the shopkeepers and customers that frequent this area of Manama.
One of the surveys we conducted was the EQS (Environmental Quality Survey). This involved observing the environment around us using sight, hearing and smell. Another survey involved counting the amount of cars which passed a certain point, and checking for traffic congestion.
We also had questionnaires to complete, and the customers and shopkeepers were quite willing to express their views on business, the environment of the Souq, and the traffic congestion which occurred.
The newly developed part of the Souq was fully pedestrianised whereas, the rest was still congested with traffic and people. One of our main goals was to find out if the pedestrianised section of the Souq made the traffic congestion better or worse.
Recently in Geography, we have been studying transport and the development of various countries, so going on this trip enhanced our abilities to solve transport problems on a smaller scale.
We have now started to piece together the data we collected, to produce a booklet on our trip which will be marked and graded according to National Curriculum Levels.
Rebecca Duncan 9A
