Alfie Gibson - Summer STEM Work Placement Student - Weekly Reports

The STEM placement students are sending us weekly blogs all about their experience in the world of work! 

Work experience is great and it provides students with many benefits whilst gaining skills and helping choose the right future career path for pupils. Having work experience on a Curriculum Vitae will make a person stand out to employers as they will notice they have motivation and a real passion for work. It will also help to boost a students confidence in themselves!

See how Alfie's getting on with his STEM placement! 

Week One

"I spent the first day surveying the birds, the idea was that it would take 10 minutes for each area of the school but my inexperience meant it took a while longer to identify all the birds. Tuesday and Wednesday were routines of sweep netting, moth trapping, long worth trapping and pond dipping - I caught a variety of interesting critters. Thursday was very helpful as Dr.Harvey took us through the data we’d collated and quizzed us on writing the report, any problems with ideas and details we might’ve been unsure about which really helped me plan a structure for it"

Week Two

"We spent the second week at Hythe school across the road from Magna Carta. There was a much greater variety of plant life and we took a while to do the bush/tree surveys on Monday as well as the sweep netting on Tuesday. The rest of the week was a comfortable routine of longworth trapping, camera trapping and moth trapping. I also went back to Magna Carta each day and did bird surveys at both schools as to acquire more substantial data on the levels of bird biodiversity." 

- Alfie Gibson