The course is centred on the Port Talbot area because it offers an excellent environment to study the impact of human activities on a variety of habitats. The area supports a number of industries, including petrochemical, energy and steel manufacturing which all have a major impacts on the environment. The Port Talbot - Swansea area exhibits a wealth of flora and fauna in various habitats including coastal bays and inlets, cliff faces, complex dune systems, saltmarshes, bogs, pasture land, mixed woodland, coniferous plantations, freshwater and brackish water habitats. We stay at the Pelenna Forest International Mountain Centre near Pontrhydyfen, Port Talbot. This centre was built by the local community in the 1970s as a way of providing sustainable employment and much needed facilities in a economically deprived area.
Students undertake a variety of exercises during the fieldtrip.
We believe that there is no substitute for learning through experience, so the students get to use a variety of apparatus for collecting and measuring environmental samples. We take a van full of equipment with us and students get to use all of it. These visits provide the opportunity to ask about how the companies manage environmental emissions, noise, traffic and how they respond to the pressures of ever tightening environmental regulation and compliance. The Port Talbot area previously supported a number of coal mines and due to the demise of the industry locally, they have been abandoned and now represent a potential source of aquatic pollution through acid mine drainage. A number of investigations are undertaken to examine the water quality of rivers in the area.