This 3-day DP Category 3 workshop will develop participant’s skills to lead and delivery effective fieldwork and internal assessment for ESS. It will also be of interest to teachers delivering Biology and Geography fieldwork. Using a hands-on approach it will demonstrate the key issues and opportunities to carrying out successful fieldwork, assessment, and provide practical experience in planning and carrying out investigations.

By the end of the workshop participants will:

 Have a tool box of skills to take back to their school enabling them to improve and develop fieldwork in their own schemes of work.
 Have increased confidence to use the environment as a context for enquiry, helping to raise student achievement in internal assessment and field based learning.
 Have transferable fieldwork skills so that they can identify new opportunities in their own local environments.

download: Flyer for Fieldwork Workshop (405.79KB) added: 30/09/2011 clicks: 259 description: An overview of the teacher training workshop into fieldwork techniques for internal assessment in Environmental Systems and Societies.

download: Workshop Agenda (111.88KB) added: 30/09/2011 clicks: 164 description: An overview of the agenda for the fieldwork based workshop at Pang Soong Lodge.

Fallen giant, the strangling fig at the end of May

Here the fig as it used to look, performing the useful function of holding a moth trap high up in the canopy.

“If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Fig trees are recognised as being such as significant component to the forest food web that they are termed “key stone” species, as they support so many other species in the community via food web connections. For bird watchers and mammal enthusiasts alike a fig tree in fruit is an ideal place to get to early in the morning to watch an abundance of wildlife attend their breakfast table. In Khao Yai I found this to be an excellent strategy for spotting hornbills and the spectacular giant squirrels. Fig trees are also useful framework species (see the FORRU website for more on this) used in forest restoration projects.

Strangling fig trees are peculiar plants in many respects. For one they start life at the top of the canopy, as an epiphyte. Birds plant the seeds in a sticky patch of guano high up on the branches of the host tree and the fig sends roots around and down the trunk until they reach the ground below. At this stage they are no longer epiphytes which is why they are often termed “hemiepiphytes”. The host trees provides structural support, but as the fig ages this is no longer required. The fig tree begins to dominate the canopy above the host tree and the competition for sunlight is clearly significant. The fig is never a true plant parasite, parasites need piercing roots that grow into the host plant like the haustorium of the dodder around the road on the way into the lodge. But the fig may actually strangle the host, not in terms of strangling to restrict flow of air of course, but by restricting the transpiration or translocation flow. As the host tries to grow by secondary thickening, in other words increasing diameter, the fig roots restrict the expansion. The xylem and pholem vessels are in the living tissue of the tree just under the bark and if flow in these vessels is restricted the tree will suffer. Some evidence for real “strangling” occuring to kill the host rather than simply competition comes from the observation that palm trees are not killed by strangling figs.

Fig trees also have a fascinatingly complex relationship with the fig wasps that pollinate them. They produce a rather peculiar flower, called a sycnonium. This is the part that people eat with suitable species. The syconimum is actually a swollen stalk, bearing an inflorescence of flowers on the inside. These are pollinated by fig wasps, with each species of fig having a corresponding species of fig wasp that can pollinate them. The fig wasp enters by a small hole and lay their eggs inside the synconium at the same time pollinating fertile female flowers, she then dies. Wingless male and female wasps hatch and mate inside, the males are then left to die. The female leaves to find another fig taking the male fig pollen with her on route. The intertwined life cycle of fig and fig wasp is described excellently on FORRU’s website in this document.

You may recognise the title of Carroll’s book from Darwin’s concluding paragraph in the Origin of Species:

“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.”

It is perhaps no great surprise to find that over 150 years ago Darwin,Wallace and Bates through studies of tropical butterflies in the Amazon and in the Malaysian Archipelago began to question the concept of the immutable species. Impressed by forms of camoulflage, crypsis and mimicry – including mimicry named after Bates (see Batesian mimicry) the question of how this variety came about was inevitable. They would not have been disappointed with the wet season flutterings in the forest around Pang Soong.

Here is a great example of crypsis on the under wing, and some brilliant colouration on the upper wing seen in the Indian Leaf Butterfly.

The Indian Leaf Butterfly, Kallima paralekta

The Indian Leaf closed

This is one of my favourite butterflies found here at Pang Soong, the Siamese Jungle Queen (close up above), a brilliantly coloured and heavily protected butterfly. It is a 40,000 baht fine for anyone caught killing this butterfly.

40,000 baht and 5 baht

Another commonly seen, beautiful and protected species at Pang Soong is the common Birdwing.

The Common Birdwing Troides helena

So why so many spectacular colours? Well there are numberous possible reasons, all of them speculative. Firstly the colour may be a warning colouration to deter predators. Secondly, the colours could be a sexual selection feature to display fitness in apparent defiance of natural selection and finally there may be no adaptive reason, even random selection is possible. For further discussion on this see this excellent paper on by Stephen J. Gould and R. C. Lewontin discussing the weakness of the adaptionist paradigm in depth, “The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm“.

However this one clearly is an example of adaptive evolution. The crypsis shown by the flower or orchid mantis, Hymenopus coronatus. Here the mantis caught during a Songkran break at the lodge was pictured against some orchids bought in the local market. The cryptic pattern even includes tiny anther like feet. It was most beautiful.

The Orchid Mantis Hymenopus coronatus

download: Butterflies and moths (11.24KB) added: 05/06/2011 clicks: 191 description: Species of Lepidoptera recorded at PSL

At this time of year it is normal to experience very hot dry conditions, with temperatures of over 40 degrees, combined with poor visibility from low air quality. During March the clear skies of February are replaced by haze. Earlier on in the year we were enjoying clear views down the Mae Lai valley back to Chiang Mai city from the ridge walk. The reduced visibility can be seen in this image from April 2010:

The lost city of Chiang Mai is on the horizon in this image

The air quality issues come from particulate pollution, normally measured as PM10, or particulate matter on ten microns in diameter. In Thailand the Pollution Control Department sets guidelines of 120 micrograms per metre cubed as a safe limit, although the World Health Organisation sets an even safety limit of 90 micrograms per metre. Above these guidelines schools do not let children play outside and it is recommended that masks are worn. Air quality has impacted on the lichen communities (Saipunkaew, Wolseley, Chimonides, & Boonpragob, 2007) and, as well as being
a significant human health issue, this will also have an effect on other species of animal. Chiang Mai’s records show that the safety level was exceeded 17 times in March and April 2010 and 16 times in 2009. The records also show that this pollution is higher than that recorded at the same time in Din Daeng, Bangkok’s most polluted air quality monitoring station. However throughout the year the Bangkok readings record more in total, with records worst in the cold season. For 2011 however the air quality has not gone over the standard at all, we can breathe easily!

The reasons behind these differences are to do with location and pollution sources. In Bangkok the cold season brings temperature inversions and the pollution is generated from within the city and then locked down. It comes from a variety of sources such as dust from construction and charcoal burning from street vendors, as well as two-stroke and diesel engines. A quick look at the pollution development departments website shows the cold season peak in particulates for Bangkok and not a hot season peak. Outside of the city, or the Lampang coal-fired power station, the hot season peak in particulates is due mostly to forest fires and other burning in fields or houses.

Fire on the ridge above the Pok-a-long stream

• Allow easy access for hunting
• Clear land for planting of subsistence or cash crops
• Encourage growth of wild mushrooms (against the scientific evidence)
• Show power and imply ownership of territory
• Return nutrients to the soil (against the scientific evidence)

The Mae Lai valley is not generally burned and in the valley base fires are rare. But up on the ridge fires are started and logs deliberately rolled down slopes to spread them. This picture shows burning on the ridge around a tree fern Brainea last year, fortunately these beautiful and unusual plants seem to recover well. This year the fires seem less widespread in the Mae Lai forests.

Burnt Brainea

Bird of prey above the opium fields

This trip was followed up by another trip with two experienced and enthusiastic birders, Gerald and Hnong Moore. I took them along the Mae Lai trail and they opened up my eyes to the diversity of birds found in the valley. Stopping for sometime at an Erythrina that was in flower Gerald pointed out many species in quick succession. As well as attracting several mammals to their sugary necataries we saw many Bulbuls here, Mountain, Sooty-headed, Streak eared and red-whiskered. This was followed up by a spectacular view of the gaudy silver-eared mesia. Deeper into the trail we were fortunate to view the Asian paradise fly catcher, a rather spectacular bird with a beautiful long chestnut brown tail.

We have also been treated to several views of small flocks of scarlet minivets both down in the valley and up on the ridge. This is a bird to grab the interest of even the non-birders in a group with the males splendid scarlet and females rich yellow feathers. We also spotted recently one of the small forest raptors with a group of ecotourists, this bird could be the shikra which is confirmed and more common, or possibly the besra that hasn’t been confirmed and is more typical of undisturbed woodlands. What do you think? You will need to zoom into this image to get a good look at it, and it is a little “shady”!

Shikra or Besra?

They were engaged in a combination of physically challenging and mentally engaging outdoor activities, which the students truly enjoyed, as they mentioned it in the guest book which they signed before they left. Jenny and Sean, two of the students, mentioned that although the activities were challenging, they enjoyed them thoroughly!

Some of the physically challenging activities they did include abseiling down a waterfall 35m high, and river tracing, also known as river trekking, whereby the students have to make a bamboo ladder and use it to help them climb, trek and swim along the Mae Lai stream.

Waterfall Abseiling

Waterfall Abseiling

In addition, the students were engaged in investigating the quality of the water in the stream where they were doing the river tracing. This gave the students an opportunity to be part of the interaction between Man and the environment and enabled them to realise the impact of Man and nature on the microorganisms in the water.

The students also got their feet wet by going into the stream to investigate more about freshwater invertebrates, and the impact of the flow rate, biotic and abiotic factors on the diversity of the freshwater invertebrate community.

Freshwater Invertebrate Investigation

All prepared to conduct their investigation

It was as if science came alive to these students. There is a stark contrast between sitting in the classroom and listening to the teacher or reading from the textbook, compared to being in the live setting, watching science come alive, and actually being part of the interaction between Man and the environment.

During their short trip, the students also contributed to the community. They were split up into two groups and took turns to teach English in the local primary school, and do some trail repairs along the nature trail. The evening before, they prepared some games and English lessons for the children. Many of them were excited at teaching the young children, as it was the first time for many of them being in-charge of a group of younger children. After their teaching stint, some of the 17-year-olds told their teachers that they now know how it feels like when nobody is listening to them. They have certainly matured a little compared to when they first arrived.

The students became teachers for a day

Moving rocks to build a small check dam

In addition, the students helped to create two check dams along the nature trail. They carried rocks and formed a stream pool. This creates a recreational area which the community can make use of during the upcoming summer months. The students also created a comfortable seating area along the trail, which students or guests who visit Pang Soong Lodge in the future may utilise while walking along the trail.

The students from St. Andrews ended their stay at Pang Soong Lodge with a bang. They had their own disco night around a warm campfire and enjoyed themselves thoroughly.

In the guest book, many students wrote that they enjoyed the fact that they survived without the use of technology for 4 days, and that this trip was one of the most memorable trips they have had, memories which will last for a long, long time.

Group Picture

Granites are intrusive igneous rocks, essentially formed from huge bubbles of molten magma that rise up from the mantle pushing up through the local rocks eventually cooling in a variety of massive structures. One consequence of granitic cooling is that the surrounding rocks are cooked, producing a variety of metamorphic rocks and mineral deposits. Ore rocks such as cassiterite or tin ore is often produced and these have been mined historically on the mountain above Pang Soong – Doi Lohn. Tin deposits are either mined from the original rocks or from more recent sedimentary deposition. Harder and older metamorphic rocks are likely to be found on the edge of the granite or above in a region called the metamorphic aureole. Here at Pang Soong there are sandstones that may have some metamorphosis and could fit into an older carboniferous rock sequence, in other words over 300 million years ago. At this time the major land mass here was along the southern shore of a massive E-W ocean called Tethys. There is also a rock found at the base of the Mae Hawn waterfall that appears to have secondary deposition and could be a tuff.  It appears to be secondary limestone deposition, but no acid reaction was seen on the specimen I have. For me the jury is still out on the identity of this one.

Leaving the chinese gorge

We headed up from the Mae Lai valley following the course of Huay Tham, the cave stream. There are spectacular waterfalls on this route, including one that is around 30m high, Namtok Huay Tham seen in the picture above. Here we stopped for lunch before continuing to explore higher up stream and to find a cave I had heard about. To get there we had to climb up onto the ridge and then back down above the Huay Tham waterfall. The path hadn’t been walked here for a while and took quite a bit of  clearing before we came up against a massive wall of rock. A massive piece of granite over 20 metres high and continuing on into the jungle. Our resident local guide and forest expert, Khun Yuern explained that this was the community forest’s own “kampaeng jin”, or Chinese Wall. We followed the wall for some time until another one rose up and we were following through a narrow gorge up to the cave with the stream rising up and disappearing down into the loose boulders beneath our feet.

Mineral deposits and veins in the cave

The cave itself was perched a few metres up on the side of the great wall gorge, a short scoop out of the granite only ten metres or so deep. The rocks were covered inside with nodules and veins, some green telltale signs of copper and the rusty red of iron. I wondered how it had formed. An unusual feature for water erosion alone, and given it appeared to be mineral rich I wondered if this could have been an old working, perhaps very old. Khun Yuern said that it had never been worked and was a natural formation. Although he had heard local stories about giants in the past, and it is easy to see how these arose to answer some of the questions about the rock formations.

According to Khun Yuern this used to be roost for bigger bats, from his description they were flying foxes, but there was only a small bat roosting high up in the cave. Apparently the big bats have been hunted and eaten, the fate of much of the regions biodiversity. Although on the way out we came across a rather large horseshoe bat, in an overhang. According to the Boonsong’s Mammals of Thailand this looks like the largest of the Thai horseshoe bats.

Rhiolophus luctus, Greater Eastern Horseshoe Bat

Sense of place itself is a term widely used to really give over an impression of a local identity shown by the relationships developed between people and their environment. It is difficult to put your finger on what this sense really is, a something that is not found in data or maps, but more in the impressions, emotions and perceptions of people when they travel to some of the planet’s more special places. It is a tricky expression to pin down, and the significance of the term is probably best understood by considering almost its polar opposite. The “placeless” places that have mushroomed in the rapid development of the second half of the 20th century and continue into the 21st. The urban sprawl and shopping malls of  cities such as Bangkok, Singapore and Hong Kong. Increasingly these places have no sense of place simply because they can exist anywhere. By contrast there is no forging of a relationship between people and the environment. The substrate is flattened or eroded, the climate conditioned to our desires and the globally ubiquitous brand names and shops styles brought in. Identity of places that existed in the past in the capital city of Bangkok are easy to find. The city’s name itself derives from the place or village of the cherry tree, don makok. This is commonly called a Hog Plum, Spondias dulcis a tree that is now far more commonly found  in these Northern Hills than it is down in the Bangkok flood plains. Other places now in the Bangkok suburubs also indicate the sense of place that used to exist before the concrete; Bang Plee – Banana Flower Place, Bang Kapi – Shrimp Paste Place and Bang Na – Paddy Field Place.

Up in Pang Soong it is harder to consider a greater contrast to the central shopping areas of Asia’s cities. The word “Pang” itself is a Northern Thai word (Kham Muang), meaning place. “Soong” itself means high in standard lowland Thai. So the name Pang Soong lends itself to the title of this blog, and within the country as a whole this land area above 1000m covers less than 5% of the land area.  The forest here at Pang Soong is typical of this kind of altitude, an evergreen hill rainforest. Deep soils have developed over the rotted triassic granite bedrock beneath, the product of chemical weathering on the feldspars in the rocks producing a looser material called growan. This develops a distinctive and clear soil horizon pattern that is reminiscent to me of forests I have known well in Devon with the same iron rust red colouration present in the mineral layers. Above ground other features are also reminiscent of temperate forests, the plant community is dominated by the family Fagaceae a.k.a. Oaks and Beeches, in far greater diversity than that found in Europe. Here there are Castanopsis, Quercus, Lithocarpus, and a rare genus Trigonobalanus found. Given the similar architecture of these trees the impression would be of a temperate deciduous forest, were it not for the strands of lianas such as Mucuna macrocarpa tangling around the trees. These lianas are often the oldest residents of a disturbed forest, revealing a rich history of tree fall and fire. Ghosts of trunks and canopies from times gone are hinted at by the loops and twists of their boughs.

Many travellers, driving up the Mae Lai valley for the first time comment on the landscape and architecture. The steep-sided valley hosts numerous small hamlets, clusters of stilted wooden buildings in traditional Khon Muang style, with galare trimmings to the eaves and ridges. Combined with the cool microclimate many comment that it has a feel more like a part of Europe than Thailand. At Pang Soong Lodge temperatures are often a full ten degrees lower than the lowland equivalent, and in the hot seasons it is a particularly cool retreat. This European feel is an illusion of course, and a stop in to one of the hamlets will confirm that this really is Northern Thailand by any measure. One more peculiarity of this place though, is that this is a rather high settlement by Thai standards as there are no other ethnic groups in the valley. In many other regions the Thai villages give way at mid altitudes to Karen hilltribes, and at higher altitudes to groups such as Hmong or Akha. Again this has lent itself to a particular approach to managing the forest which has been traditionally a community forest managed for the growing of “miang”. This is a native green tea, Camellia sinensis, the leaves of which are fermented and used for chewing. This practice has allowed much of the forest to remain comparatively intact compared with many similar areas in the North and further lends itself to the rather exclusive identity of this high place.