Postgraduate students take field trip to Blakeney Point

The trip, which involves students staying on Blakeney Point for two to three nights, provides students with their first exposure to teaching on their course, and aims to encourage them to think about experimental design, how to design a protocol for field sampling to solve a specific problem, and collect data following said protocol. This introduces them to some of the problems they may experience whilst working with biological samples and sampling.

UCL has been running field trips to Blakeney Point for over a century. Students arrive by boat in small groups and are often the only people staying on the Point at one time. During their stay, students are able to see the habitat of an array of residential and migratory wildlife.

Professor Tim Blackburn states: “The Blakeney field trip is a great way for us to get to know the students – and for the students to get to know each other – against the backdrop of one of England’s oldest nature reserves."