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Make your own fieldwork equipment: Canopy cover

  • Fieldwork,
  • Key Stage Two,
  • Key Stage Three,
  • Key Stage Four,
  • Key Stage Five

What you need

  • Section of drainpipe or a pill box with the end cut off

  • Acetate

  • Graph paper

  • Petri dish

  • Tape or glue

What you do

Photocopy your graph paper onto the sheet of acetate and cut out a circle that fits the drain pipe aperture. Place the acetate circle into a plastic Petri dish and stick this on one end of the drain pipe. For accurate canopy cover measurements, there will need to be around 100 squares of graph paper visible through the drain pipe aperture, but in reality this may not be possible so students will have to estimate the percentage coverage.

When you use it

These pieces of equipment can be used to estimate percentage canopy cover at different sites, and are useful alternatives to expensive light meters. Use them during ecosystem studies to investigate the amount of light that reaches the forest floor in dense woodland and clearances. Alternatively, use them in rivers or on rock surfaces to record sediment particles size in situ.

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Royal Geographical Society
(with the Insitute of British Geographers),
1 Kensington Gore,
London, SW7 2AR

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