Designing investigative skills sessions for key stage 5 students based on field research in the Ghanaian savannah prompted reflection on the similarities and differences in the ways farmers and students learned about and applied scientific methodology. Circumstantial constraints mean that farmers' experiments were less controlled than those students were taught to do, and students' analysis of this was used to improve their A-level preparation. Experiential and networked learning styles were appropriate for teaching the methodological content to both groups of learners, especially in the interdisciplinary arena in which fieldwork is performed. (Contains 1 figure.)