Welcome to the ECN education tutorials.
Founded in 1992, the Environmental Change Network (ECN) is the United Kingdom's integrated monitoring network. It is designed to collect, store, analyse, and interpret long-term data based on a set of key variables which drive and respond to environmental change at a range of terrestrial and freshwater sites across the UK. The ECN collects data on plants and animals and analyses their response to changes in climate and pollution.
This set of tutorials is aimed at GCSE geography students, and is based around the 'GCSE Geography Syllabus 2000'. The tutorials cover the 'key ideas' set out in 'Theme A: The Atmosphere', notably, Climate, Weather, Air Mass, Depression, Front, Anticyclone, Climatic Factors, and Climate Change.
Each key idea is split into a Tutorial and an Exploratory Section. The Tutorial leads the student through numerous interactive pages, explaining in detail the key ideas behind a principle. When the student nears the end of the tutorial, they are given the option to explore other sources of data, and put their understanding of the 'key idea' to the test. This data is collected from both ECN data, and external sources such as the internet.
If the student has completed the Tutorial, or they already have an understanding of the 'key idea', they can then progress to the Exploratory Section in which they can explore their own data straight away.
The tutorial is a self-contained package, however there are links to sources on the internet. The student is invited to click on the 'back' button on the top left of the screen. This will ensure the student does not stray too far away from the tutorial pages.