Seyi Paul - 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 Seyi is getting on with their STEM placement! 

Week One 

"During the first week of my experience, I learnt how to transfer data from their electronic report on PIMS onto data points on to Google Earth pro. During this process, I was able to gain an insight into the type of projects the organisation performs; such as Geo-Environmental and Geotechnical Interpretive reports; site specific risk assessment and remediation method statements and much more. 

To follow, I transfered GIS layers from the data government archive/data publisher such as flood areas, LIDAR and mining data and others onto the QGIS system, although, I had to make sure the files were 'WMS' (web mapping services) to ensure the data contained within the GIS system is up-to-data as these file types are automatically updated when new data is found. 

After all this data was inserted into GIS, my next task was to move all the data that was held on Google Earth pro onto GIS as this couldn't be done directly from the spreadsheet data using the prior system. This meant I had to download the Google Earth data as a KML as this represents geospatial data. 

Lastly, I formatted the KML files after they were added to the GIS to be acquired and used easily by altering their properties to fit with the style of Google Earth by making the data easily differentiable by making their visual properties distinct. 

Next week, my task would be to research and find a means to transfer data from the spreadsheet directly to our in-house GIS system." 

Week Two

"I had the opportunity to do some research this week as I was assigned the task of moving our spreadsheet data directly onto QGIS. The main problem I encountered was that it was difficult to find manuals on how to use various functions and plugins and means of data transfer, I found out I was able to convert my excel file into a CSV (Comma-Separated Variable); which then can be uploaded onto the QGIS system as a delimited text layer. Although, in order to allow my spreadsheet data to interact with existing base maps, I needed to manually add Easting-Northing co-ordinates onto their data. Thus, after this was completed, the job locator would directly place jobs from the spreadsheet and plot their precise location onto QGIS. 

The next task I was assigned by Tom - who is in charge of the CAD drawings - was to create a template for each type of site layout figure types on QGIS. On QGIS, these exist as a report and would enable the engineers to access drawings made for each site layout directly on QGIS. I had to follow the formatting used in previous jobs to maintain consistency when they create their reports."

Week Three

"I started off this week by working on a geo-environmental project in CGL. My first task was to read into what the CLEA model was, which is the Contaminated Land Environmental Agency. This model is a spreadsheet-based application used to estimate exposure to chemicals from soil onto humans on the land. My job was to create a parameter that focuses on school buildings. Whilst doing this, I had to research relevant parameters and their corresponding values; as well as looking at existing parameters and using intuition based off other building type data. To fill in values. After all parameter values were filled, I looked at the risk of a range of chemical compounds found in the soil, and how different concentrations found in a particular soil type – in our case, sandy loam – would cause harm to soil inhabitants."

- Seyi Paul