We offer an exciting range of fieldtrips to students on all undergraduate programmes in Geography.

In the first year of your degree programme you will participate in locally-based one-day field excursions as part of your introduction to key issues and methods in human and physical geography.

In the second and final years of each degree programme, we offer optional residential fieldcourses to a variety of locations. In recent years, these have included field trips to Montserrat (Caribbean), New York, Paris, Singapore and Switzerland.

Examples of current fieldtrips:

The second year Physical Geography Fieldcourse uses North Wales as a base. From here students undertake projects studying coastal systems, glacial history, river habitats and in-stream ecology. Field skills developed include the extraction and analysis of peat cores, vegetation surveys, geomorphological mapping and the characterisation of sediments.

The second year Urban Geography Fieldcourse visits Paris where students spend their time examining the status of Paris as a world city and exploring a number of key sites that stand at the intersection of global flows of capital and culture. Ethnographic approaches are also used to investigate different representations of Paris.

The final year Alpine Studies Fieldcourse takes students to the Arolla Valley in Switzerland. Whilst there, students develop their understanding of the geomorphological, hydrological and biogeographical processes that shape glaciated environments using techniques including dendrochronology, lichenometry, hazard mapping and sediment analysis.

The final year Mediterranean Rural Spaces Fieldcourse allows students to explore rural change and development on Crete, the largest island in Greece. Students travel around the central part of the island, in the prefecture of Heraklion, and use filming equipment to create short documentaries as part of their assessment. They also write a field journal whilst there and an academic essay when they return. The fieldcourse thus provides students with useful and creative research skills in human geography and allows them to see a side of Crete that few will have experienced before.