For the end of their geography unit this term, Year 4 visited Hamsterley Forest to complete a river study on the Bedburn Beck, a tributary of the River Wear.
Our guide, Dyfan, explained that unfortunately, the river current was far too fast and strong and the river level was too high to complete all of our planned activities. But, we were still able to complete some of the study.
We started with a walk along the river, spotting the features of the river we had learned about such as the river banks, the river current, the meanders and several tributaries. We then completed some field sketches of the river in pairs, labelling all the features and relevant vocabulary.
We were able to demonstrate how fast the river current was flowing when we stopped at the bridge. We could see first hand how much more erosion of the river bank happens when the current is stronger and could see how murky the water looked with all of the sediment and silt it was carrying.
We really enjoyed our visit and being able to see a real life example of lots of our geography knowledge from this half term.