Athboy students' river study

A group of 57 sixth year geography students from Athboy Community School travelled to Blessington in County Wicklow for a river field study recently. The purpose of the field trip to the Kippure estate was to study the processes of fluvial erosion and how they shape the landscape. The group was accompanied by teachers Mr Magner, Ms Crosby, Ms O'Donoghue and Ms Drake. They had an enjoyable, action-packed day, gathering data in the upper course of Athdown Brook, a tributary of the Liffey, as well as a lower course site on the Liffey itself. With the aid of the park rangers, each student measured river velocity and then undertook a river channel cross section and a valley profile to see the effects of erosion on the shape of both the river and valley. The group also measured discharge, gradient and did a bedload analysis to observe the process of attrition. They also observed features of erosion such as V-shaped valleys, rapids, plunge pools and undercut banks. The students must now produce a report on the field trip which is worth 20 per cent of their Leaving Certificate geography examination.