Geography Fieldwork (IA) Help Needed

[Moceaux]

Hi,

My fieldwork report (IA) is due to be finished till the end of summer

tbh my class has done a fieldwork investigation already in an urban park area in a bigger city, but the whole data collection was messed up and now i'm thinking about doing a research on my own :( I live in Hungary and the only place where they grow rice is around the little town where i happen to live...they have bio rice, wild rice and all kinds of stuff, anyways

It sort of a HUGE deal, the paddy fields take up an area of 1000 ha land, they water it from a special canal and supposedly it satisfies 30% of the European wild rice market demands... I've been thinking about doing an IA related to this, but i'm not sure which topic would be optimal for this and what things could i really measure... Maybe it could be about something related to soil degradation or impact on the local environment in general, and the question could be like "How has agricultural activity at Location Y affected X?", but i can't really examine the impact over time...so I don't know :/ Any idea/suggestion/tip is deeply appreciated and desperately needed :3

[fruitbowl]

Hi there! 

I completed my Geo course work last year. I did mine on urban heat islands.

What do you mean exactly by the data collection got messed up?

This rice stuff sounds really interesting, and we all know the IB loves IA's that are specific to cultural/local issues. However, I think that it would be very difficult to measure anything related to the actual growing of the rice/soil quality etc , because as you have said you wouldn't be able to measure it over a decent enough length of time. 

Some ideas:

Option A: Freshwater: Drainage Basins:

• Effect of rice agriculture on a river/lake. You could use an oxygen meter (most schools have one) to test the percentage of oxygen in the water. You could use google earth and some kind of grid to establish the eutrophication levels. Then you could also send questionnaires asking about what sorts of fertilizers and pesticides the rice farmers use.
• How has agricultural activity at Location Y affected River X?

Option E: Leisure, Tourism and Sport:

• If the area around you is important for tourism you could find out why. You could do questionnaires for local business owners about the effects the tourists have had on the community. You could also do questionnaires for tourists about why they come to the area, how old they are, where they come from and if they have come before.
• You could investigate the importance of the sport/leisure industry on your local community. This is only for if their is a major sport or leisure activity that people do near you. If so you can go to the centers and ask the owners questions, people who take part in the sport etc. 

Option G: Urban Environments: (this is probably one the easiest options to be honest)

• Look at models of cites (e.g. Burgess model or the Hoyts model) and see how closely your town/city follows the model. This will involve walking up and down streets and counting the hieghts of buildings and recording their purpose ( residential, commercial etc), doing vehicle ans pedestrian counts.
• Urban heat Island: covering the city and recording the temperature on the corners of streets, then combining this info with the pedestrian and vehicle activity as well as any human or physical features which could alter the temperature of the city.

Remember: google earth is your greatest friend! (Obviously check the imagery date to make sure it is recent first!)  

There are loads more ideas on this website: https://owltutors.co.uk/ib-geography-internal-assessment-ia/

Remember that the field work collection is time consuming and usually it is collected collaboratively by the whole class. This means going solo might be very stressful and intensive, so don't discount what you did with your class too readily! Go back and take another look at it. 

Try not to stress out too much, my school probably takes the biscuit for messed up IAs so I know how you feel! 

Good luck with everything!