My Work Experience Week

Samuel and Harvey joined the Sussex Wildlife Trust's Gatwick Greenspace project for a week of work experience. They worked hard on practical tasks, with Nature Tots and Youth Rangers. Find out how they got on in their own words.

Samuel Giacomelli

I have been a Wildlife Ranger for three years with Gatwick Greenspace and love working outdoors. So when the time came when I had finished all of my exams at school, and decided to do some work experience, it was an easy chose of where to do it.

I have taken part in lots of different activities this week ranging from Nature Tot’s to wild flower identification and putting a rabbit proof net around the vegetable patch. The thing I will remember the most about my week with Gatwick Greenspace will be wading down a river to clear Himalayan balsam off the river banks.

My plan for the future is to work outdoors, helping wildlife to survive and thrive in the natural and man-made countryside and I’m also extremely interested in using livestock as part of conservation grazing, which could help lots of different species of wild flowers to grow. I am always looking to learn some common wild flowers and butterflies. more skills, and touch up on the ones I have learnt in the past, so being with Gatwick Greenspace has been a brilliant experience. One new thing that I have learnt and can take away from this week is how to identify wild flowers and insects.

I would also like to add that if you are interested in the natural world and conservation, and are thinking to take it as a career, is to get out there and do as much volunteering as you can.

Harvey Divall

When it came to choose a Work Experience placement, I was stuck. This was because I didn’t know what I wanted to do in the future. I knew I wanted to be mostly outside in the hot weather, rather than being stuck in an office filing papers. This was when I was told about going to a park or nature reserve.

I was then told about a placement in Tilgate Park. When I looked up what they do, I saw that they help out the community in many different ways, from countryside management to Youth Ranger sessions. This increased my interests and so I have worked here all this week.

On Monday, I helped with the gardening, by planting vegetables and watering them. Tuesday I helped Tom, another member of the Greenspace, with his NatureTots session. Wednesday, we went out to Dairy House Private Nature Reserve in Capel. This was with the Youth Rangers and we learnt about different butterflies and the pea plant family. On Thursday, we went to the Gatwick Stream with Kevin’s volunteers and we went into the river, wearing waders, to pull out Himalayan balsam which is a non-native evasive plant. On Friday, my last day working, we were building bird boxes.

Overall, I have really enjoyed working with the Gatwick Greenspace Project and found it interesting seeing what they do in the community.