During my 3rd week, I had the chance to help with a couple of outreach visits to colleges in Peterborough. I started on Monday morning with a trip out to meet a group of students who are going to come and do a photography project in the Great Fen. They received a presentation on the background of the Great Fen project and its main aims to help set the scene. I’d not seen this presentation before and found it was a helpful consolidation of my existing knowledge. The other visit was to represent the Wildlife Trust BCN at a Careers Fair for post-16 and adult learners. Although we weren’t advertising specific jobs (and it was challenging when students came and asked what we had on offer), it felt encouraging to be a presence there among lots of companies and flying the flag for careers in conservation. Over the course of the fair, I built up my confidence talking to students about the Wildlife Trust – who we are and what we do – although I was surprised how many hadn’t heard of us before!
Intern Insights: Weeks 3 and 4
In-between these visit-orientated days I had one based at Ramsey Heights helping with Forest School. I spent most of the session observing a new child – attending for his first time – who showed real progression over the 2 hours. He began the session throwing sticks around in a very destructive manner, as his parent had predicted, but I observed him channel this energy into a creative task of constructing a ‘base’ in which to work at toolmaking. This type of progression really epitomises the ethos of Forest School and learner-centred development.
I started my 4th week with another Forest School session, during which we began a new group project. One of the key principles of Forest School is reflective practise, and a reflection from last term (during which I was helping as a volunteer) was that having a creative project (building hedgehog houses) was something the groups’ both really enjoyed. Our Forest School leader came up with the idea of building a Weather Station to have in the Forest School area at Ramsey Heights, so this week we gave the children opportunity to start painting the wood for the main board and making wooden cookies illustrated with different weathers!
My other working days of the week entailed assisting with primary school visits - these were my first experiences of school groups visiting Ramsey Heights, so I shadowed staff to learn how the days work! In brief they involve an initial starter activity (guessing which animals live in The Great Fen) before the group are divided up and rotate round 3 different activities: den building, pond dipping, and a nature walk. They then coming together to review the starter activity before they go home. It was the first disturbance of the year for the pond, and, although the pond dipping activity was new to quite a lot of the children, they did a good job of waking it up - with both the nets and noise (squeals of excitement) as they caught water boatmen, ramshorn snails, and cased caddisfly larvae!
My time in the office over the last 2 weeks has been predominantly taken up with reviewing and selecting photos for a Plant Life Art Exhibition (at St. Wendreda’s Church in March) and preparing interpretation material to accompany the display. This cumulated in going to set up the display on Friday afternoon ahead of the Exhibition opening to the public this weekend!
I couldn’t finish a blog for the last few weeks without mentioning the marvellous March weather we’ve been having. The outdoor activities are particularly enjoyable when the sun is shining down on you - and taking take breaks (and meetings) outside with a growing chorus of spring birdsong has really lifted my spirits!
