Our Raymond Island Field Trip was a perfect fit for this year’s Science Week theme of Australian Biodiversity.
Ms Court, Ms Evans and Miss de Geus, along with 34 of our Year 11 Biology students spent the day at Raymond Island on Thursday 19th of August to complete a fieldwork assignment. This included drawing a field sketch and a transect of the vegetation, recording all Koala’s seen and identifying their gender. Students also had to collect a variety of other data, including temperature, light intensity, cloud type and wind speed (abiotic, or non-living factors) and consider how these factors have influenced the variety of fauna (animals) and flora (plants) that are found on Raymond Island.
The data that the students collected themselves while at Raymond Island forms the primary data for their assignment, because it is the “snapshot” view of the Island’s biodiversity on one day at one time. To understand how the Island has changed over time, however, students are now looking through secondary data, using books, internet articles and old (as well as new) maps of the Island to answer a series of questions about the impact of human activities and changes in climate on the Island’s biodiversity.