Year 10 Science Trip to Romshed Farm

Students learned about the many ways in which farming can be carried out sustainably and in a way that benefits both the land and the farmer. Fidelity, who owns the farm, passionately talked about how the farm had changed over the years to make the best use of the land and work with nature, for example, by no longer attempting to grow crops. The soil was not good enough for crop growth, and using fertilisers was detrimental to biodiversity, so they stopped this practice and allowed the fields to become biodiverse meadows. One meadow which we walked through was a wildflower meadow that is almost as biodiverse as the Amazon Rainforest.

Varieties of winowers and noticed changes in biodiversity due to biotic and abiotic factors within the meadow. Here, they used transect sampling techniques to collect data on biodiversity and how it changes as it moves away from a large group of trees. They also got to see the beautiful cows that are reared at Romshed.

We also learned about how the cows are looked after and why having cows and sheep on the farm is better than crops. We used our knowledge of photosynthesis and starch storage to explain why they move the cows to new pastures daily to promote grass growth. We then got our hands dirty, sifting through cow dung, trying to find dung beetles, with some absolutely wonderful specimens found and observed. Students were able to appreciate just how important the decay cycle is in recycling nutrients back into the ground and the role these tiny detritivores play.

We compared soil samples in different parts of a field. We learnt how energy is used on the farm- from wood burning to heat the farmhouse, using wood from the managed woodlands surrounding the farm to the solar panels in one field, which help to increase the renewable energy available on the national grid.