Geography Visit to Seef Mall

Year 7 went to Seef Mall in the hope of establishing the answer to the question: Why do people visit Seef Mall. Before we left, we selected groups that we wanted to work with and we were given booklets with different activities to help us solve the question at hand. These activities included: Pedestrian counts; Shop tally; Shop survey; EQS (Environmental Quality Survey); Field Sketch and Questionnaire. Before we were allowed to go and roam around the mall, our teacher, Mr Tayler, set us a boundary for how far we were allowed to go, and also what time to return; we were allowed an hour to complete our booklet. When doing the Pedestrian counts, we had to pick one area of the mall, and stay there for around three minutes. Then we had had to watch how many people went past. We had to do this in two places in the mall. After counting one by one, we added up how many people had walked past at that part of the mall. Next was the EQS, and like the pedestrian counts, there were two to complete. We did the first one outdoors and had to rate the area out of five for the following factors: if there was an odour; if it was clean (no litter); if it was quiet; if it was calm and if it was safe. Then the Questionnaire was where we had to go up to a passing pedestrian and ask them some questions about Seef Mall. These included: What was the reason they were in Seef Mall? They had an option of choosing Shopping, Work, Food/Drink and other. Then we asked how they got to Seef Mall, again options were offered, and these were: Car, Bus/Taxi, Walking, Bike and other. Lastly, we asked them on a scale from 1-5 the cleanliness, how good the shops were, how good the food and drink were, and how safe they thought the mall was. The shop survey was where we had an empty strip of shops on either side, and we had to fill in the sort of shop it was. At the bottom there was a key, and whatever we classed the shop type as, that was the letter we put in the space. There was also a shop tally. This was where we picked another part of the mall and counted up how many of which category of shops there were. Lastly, in our booklet was a Field sketch. This was when we stopped at one location of the mall and drew what we saw. This could be anywhere within the boundary our teacher set us at the beginning. After finishing our booklet, and when our time was up, we were taken to the food court where we could then choose anything to eat within the food court, and anyone with a pack lunch ate that instead. After around 20-30 minutes of eating time, it was then time to board our bus and make our way back to school, where we would be picked up as usual. – Aerin Fraser 7E