Extended work placement student Poppy Miller - Student Case Study

Currently, I am studying at Esher College and have taken Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics and Physics at AS. I will continue to take the first 3 into A-level. Looking into the future at University I would like to take a Biology and Chemistry related subject ideally at a Russell group University. My end goal is to have a career in the scientific field.

 I applied for the placement as I felt it would help me prepare for university; focusing on a bigger project, planning, collecting data and then writing up my findings. On top of this, I was excited to get really immersed into a scientific sector and broaden my knowledge. I felt that having the opportunity to experience a specific area would help me decide on the right university course. Plus I believed it would help me to decide what direction in science I would like to go into and the type of course I wanted to study at university. Finally, the thought that I will be contributing to current research was very appealing.

My placement “monitoring biodiversity in school grounds” was focused on practical ecology and the aim was to collect data on schools’ biodiversity. We spent 4 weeks visiting schools for 2 - 3 days per site to collect as much data as possible on their biodiversity. This involved the use of: pit falls (dry and wet), Longworth traps, wildlife cameras, pond dipping (if applicable), butterfly transects, sweep nets, moth traps and also plant, pollinator and bird surveys. During the placement I had to do extra research in order to identify plants, find Latin names and look up which group to put certain insects in, for example Diptera is how I would group true flies.

Changing my views on what course I wanted to enrol on is the biggest benefit from this placement, before I wanted a course that was very much focused on lab work and now I’m much more open to applying for a course with both lab work and field work.  I also felt the placement allowed me to think independently in order to overcome problems we faced, a skill that will be very useful at university which requires you to be very independent. Moreover the placement helped me to expand my knowledge in an area I knew very little about and has made me more aware of the nature around me and how we are impacting it, for example a school with a very strict grounds management had fewer insects than another school that had wildflowers and an area left untouched.