Curious about Nature

Notwithstanding the importance of modern technology, fieldwork remains vital, not least through helping to inspire and educate the next generation. Fieldwork has the ingredients of intellectual curiosity, passion, rigour and engagement with the outdoor world – to name just a few. You may be simply noting what you see around you, making detailed records, or carrying out an experiment; all of this and much more amounts to fieldwork. Being curious, you think about the world around you, and through patient observation develop and test ideas. Forty contributors capture the excitement and importance of fieldwork through a wide variety of examples, from urban graffiti to the Great Barrier Reef. Outdoor learning is for life: people have the greatest respect and care for their world when they have first-hand experience of it.

Part I. Getting Curious about Nature:
1. Fieldwork and nature: observing, experimenting, and thinking Tim Burt and Des Thompson
2. The place of field studies in environmental science Michael Church
3. The history of field work in the geosciences Andrew S. Goudie
4. Pioneering fieldwork heroes in the life sciences Stephen Trudgill
5. The educational benefits of out-of-classroom learning Michael J. Reiss

Part II. Inspiring Fieldwork:
6. Understanding the decline of hen harriers on Orkney Arjun Amar
7. Rocky shores are not just for the able-bodied John Archer-Thomson
8. Life, love and longing to survive Alison Averis
9. Bringing palaeoecology alive Hilary H. Birks
10. Expedition botany / hobby botany John Birks
11. The Illisarvik drained-lake field experiment: a legacy of J. Ross Mackay Chris Burn
12. In praise of meteorology field courses Stephen Burt
13. Time, place and circumstance Tim Burt
14. Sampling fish diversity along a submarine mountain chain Ingvar Byrkjedal
15. Place and placefulness Richard Carrick
16. Ripples across the pond Stuart Corbridge
17. Fieldwork, field-friends, and the paradox of absence Douglas Davies
18. Ornithological fieldwork – essential and enjoyable Roy Dennis
19. Exploration science on the shore of the Arctic Ocean – a personal experience David J. A. Evans
20. Only connect – and make records Alastair Fitter
21. Studying patterned bogs David Goode
22. Mapping the rise of the animals: Cambrian bodies in the Sirius Pass, North Greenland David A. T. Harper
23. Evolution in the cellar: live-trapping wild house mice in the Italian Alps Heidi C. Hauffe
24. Reflections on 'babooning' Russell Hill
25. Bogs, birds and bones: interdisciplinary fieldwork on the Isle of RuÌm NNR Peter Higgins
26. Exploring world(s) down under Emily Husband
27. Experiments by nature – strength in realism Christian Körner
28. Big problems – small animals Charles J. Krebs
29. Soil survey: a field-based science Allan Lilly
30. A traveling ethnography of urban technologies Andrés Luque-Ayala
31. My date with the devil Peter Marren
32. Peregrinations through the heathlands and moorlands of Britain: an applied plant ecologist's tale Rob Marrs
33. The Maimai catchment New Zealand Jeff McDonnell
34. 'Writing in the field' – the importance of a local patch Stephen Moss
35. Looking but not seeing – how sketching in the field improves observational skills in science Stephen Mott
36. From rum to recording forest soils via the Soil Survey of Scotland – a life of fieldwork Andrew J. Nolan
37. In praise of bat detectors Kirsty Park
38. In search of Tawny Frogmouths Stuart Rae
39. Don't just sit there reading … Jane M. Reid
40. Fieldwork in the Australian bush – if it doesn't kill you, it'll convert you Lisa Robins
41. Field studies of behaviour and life-changing events Leigh W. Simmons
42. Sediment, wind turbines, and rhinos: ah, the life of a geographer! Mike Slattery
43. Conservation science – the need for a new paradigm founded on robust field evidence William J. Sutherland
44. The worst journey in the world Des Thompson
45. Field-less fieldwork in archaeology's digital age Andrew Tibbs
46. Reflections on a career with FSC Sue Townsend
47. My love-affair with rocks that fizz Maurice Tucker
48. In the footsteps of John Wesley Powell – restoring the sand bars in the Grand Canyon Alan Werritty
49. Connecting the next generation to their world Natalie White
50. Beyond the curriculum – wider conceptions of learning in the field Lewis Winks

Part III. Reflections and where next for field studies:
51. Conclusion: inspiring, curious and novel fieldwork Tim Burt and Des Thompson.