Project Details Page 2 of 3 VIRTUAL MONTANA Transnational European Geography Fieldwork Program A Socrates-supported Intensive Programme Rationale and Aims Subjects Quality Assurance Outcomes Audience and Work Plan   Outcomes All participants on each course will achieve the following outcomes: work in multinational groups of students and therefore acquire an understanding of the variety of different cultures, languages, approaches to teaching and learning and national perspectives on western and eastern Europe. visit a field centre in a relatively isolated rural environment where they will live in a small group atmosphere and meet local inhabitants in so doing they gain an appreciation of the culture and traditions of the host nation. become familiar with one or more foreign languages and begin to be able to listen, understand and speak those languages. share and learn a range of different approaches to field studies with two other foreign countries, including qualitative and quantitative research tools, quantitative methods of recording physical processes and landforms and high quality mapping skills and techniques. become familiar with an overseas field work area. Subjects under study The subjects to be taught will include: topics planned teaching hours the physical nature of the land (geology and scenery, water including the influence of glaciers, local mountain meteorology, the ecology and vegetation of the areas) 15 hours the human influence on the landscape (historical developments, cultural and demographic elements, economic developments including rural change, industrial developments, transport and communications, energy, tourism and service provision, planning and management). 30 hours the environmental implications (environmental impacts, pollution, measuring and monitoring, conservation measures including National Parks) 15 hours fieldwork techniques, data collection, interpretation, presentation and analysis 20 hours Due to the nature of the programme, the materials developed for the first part of the Intensive Programme consist predominantly of preparatory information, including those developed for the World Wide Web. In addition, activity-based materials and taught sessions will guide the students towards an introduction to the region under study as well as the skills and techniques that will later be used in the course. The courses will focus on some of the quantitative and qualitative techniques used in data collection in geography. Each day of fieldwork will consist of practical activities, organised through collaborative groupwork. This will involve data collection in the field, supported by the use of field notebooks and survey sheets. Then, in the evenings, course booklets will support the follow-up activities to the studies carried out during the day, This will lead to the presentation of the results and, in groups, the interpretation and discussion of findings. These field techniques and the materials to support these types of study are already widely in use and specific geography fieldwork materials have been successfully piloted in all three IP locations. | 1 | 2 | 3 | Page 2 of 3