Geography Trip to Bowness – October 2024

On Wednesday 9th October, there was a Geography Field Trip to Bowness-on-Windermere for our Year 9 students. Students had been studying the impacts of tourism and had learnt how to investigate these using various fieldwork techniques. The tally counters were a big hit with many students, and they enjoyed the people watching element of the pedestrian count task.

The students had a wonderful day exploring the environment and the area, although the local Tesco seemed to be the biggest hit with most of the students. Luckily the rain held off, which allowed the students to collect everything they needed with a smile on their face and a portion of chips or ice cream in their hands. Everyone was impeccably behaved, with a member of the public even commenting on this.

A few of our students wrote about their experiences during the day, as shown below:

Ollie

When we arrived at Bowness-on-Windermere, we toured five different areas around Bowness. On the way to the first one, we kept a tally of different buildings, restaurants, shops etc.

At our first destination, we kept a score of how good the environment was for the animals to live in, whether it was full of people or not, how noisy it was, how much litter there was and how nice the buildings were. We then set a timer for five minutes and kept a tally of how many people were walking away and towards the lake. We repeated this step for the next four destinations.

We also visited two different car parks and counted how many parking spaces there were free and how many spaces were taken. We learned about some features of Bowness which helped us with the field work.

My favourite part of this trip was being able to visit many different attractions and being able to observe many beautiful views around the lake.

Jennifer

What did we do?

We went to five separate locations. At those locations, we counted the number of pedestrians walking to and from the lake and town centre. We also analysed the noise levels, how crowded that locations was, the wildlife, the litter and how the buildings fit the surrounding area. We also visited two car parks and counted the number of spaces versus the number of cars. We also made a tally of different attractions and facilities.

Why did we do this?

We did this to investigate the impact of tourism. We learnt that there were not many residential areas, as it was mostly shopping areas. Overall, tourism in Bowness has small effects on social life in Bowness and the environmental life.

What did I enjoy?

My favourite aspect of the trip was counting the pedestrians. I liked counting the people with a tally counter and being slightly nosey to where they are going. I also liked sitting by the lake eating my lunch, as it was peaceful with a nice view, and the weather was pleasant as well.

Maisie

On the Geography trip to Bowness we started at a site which was just in front of the lake. We looked through our booklet and wrote down how much noise there was and how much litter there was. We also took note of how the environment was. We then used a counting device to count how many people there were going to and from the lake.

Then we walked to two other locations and did it again. We stopped at two car parks and counted the spaces and cars.

We did these things because we are doing about tourism so we went to Bowness to see what tourists can do and how many tourists were there.

My favourite thing we did on the trip was counting the people going to and from the lake. I liked this because it was fascinating to see how many tourists went to Bowness to see the lake and go in the local shops and attractions.

Elissa

When we went on the field trip and we counted how many people walked towards the lake and away. This is because we wanted to find out how it attracts the local people and tourists.

We also counted how many spaces there were and how many were taken. This is to see how busy it was and why. This could have been because of the surroundings.

I enjoyed the most of seeing if more people walked towards the lake and if it actually attracted people.

Lucas

On the Geography trip we surveyed five parts of Bowness. Things such as litter, noise and building planning. We also counted how many people came and went from these areas and left. We counted car parking spots to see how busy it was. My favourite part was buying a sausage roll from the local tearooms.

Theo

On the trip we walked around Bowness marking down certain things we found such as how many people there were walking in a certain direction, how many cars and motor vehicles car parks could contain and how many were actually there throughout the day. We also noted down the different types of buildings there were and tallied which had the most. We rated each area of Bowness on a scale of 1-5 different categories such a noise levels, amount of litter, how crowded it was and two other categories which I have forgotten.

You can see some photographs from the day below: