School of Earth and Environment

For Schools: Information for Teachers

Students using stepping stones to cross a river

We have a variety of tours and activities available to school and individual visitors, ranging from talks on our courses for sixth formers to fun workshops to introduce primary school pupils to the areas of science that we study.

As well as running a programme of events throughout the year, we also try to accommodate requests for visits, talks and workshops from individual schools. We are particularly interested in supporting schools who wish to develop our subjects within the curriculum, or who have large cohorts of students from the first generation of their family to consider higher education.

Please click here to find out more about our Faculty Outreach programmes

Visits to Leeds

We host visits by VI form groups where we provide our popular 'Leeds Rocks' petrology practical in our state of the art Earth Visualization Laboratory. This interactive workshop covers parts of the A level syllabus which can be difficult to cover in a classroom. The students learn the basic skills of thin section analysis using our dedicated microscope teaching suite. Group sizes can be from 1 to 96 students. A simpler version of this work shop is also available for KS 3 and 4.

It may be possible to provide financial assistance with transport for your group to Leeds. Please contact Rob Chapman or Phil Murphy for further details

Visits by Leeds staff and students to your school

By staff

Learn the techniques of earth quake location using real data from the seismic monitoring network based at Leeds. This can be run with AS or A2 geology or physics groups or for KS4. We bring all the materials – you just need to provide pencils, rulers and pairs of compasses.

Make your own fossils – we bring a slection of fossils to show what a palaeontologist can work out from the study of fossils combined with the chance to cast your own fossil from dental plaster. This activity is aimed at KS2.

By students

We organise visits to schools by our 3rd and 4th year students, many of whom enjoy visiting their old schools. These sessions involve a personal view of life as a student in Earth and Environment at Leeds, but details of courses and standard entrance requirements are provided to each speaker.

The Geology into Schools programme

Some of our final year students are interested in a career in teaching, and the level 3 geology into schools module provides the opportunity for them to gain experience of the school environment, during 20 hours in school. The students are assessed by a project which describes the development of teaching materials for either GSCE or A level. Schools which have been involved since 2005 are: Greenhead College Huddersfield,  Horsforth School, St Aidans Harrogate, New College Pontefract, Sheffield High School for girls, High Storrs School Sheffield and Thomas Rotherham College, Rotherham

Teaching Resources

Field trip guides

Side Pike, Langdale

A four hour investigation of the pyroclastic sediments of the Borrowdale Volcanic series

Knaresborough

An easy access walk along the River Nidd investigating sedimentary rocks and environments of deposition.

Runswick Bay, Staithes to Port Mulgrave and Whitby

Three half day field trips which together cover most of the Jurassic stratigraphy of the NE coast. (Note: Staithes and Whitby trips are tide dependent). They are detailed itineraries with many images as guides.

Rock Boxes

A selection of rock samples with accompanying notes aimed at KS2.

Contacts