Behind the Scenes: My Time at Creekside Discovery Centre

 I guess I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect of my first day at The Creek. I thought we’d start off slow inductions, get shown around, and maybe do some menial tasks. You know, just to get a feel of the place. I didn’t expect to get right into the mix with a bunch of energetic 10-year-olds on a school trip. But that’s exactly what happened.

 After a very quick introduction to the team and a very brief tour, Josh (my friend who was also taking part in work experience these two weeks) and I found ourselves in high vis in a classroom session with a primary school class. I suppose they were meant to be learning about rivers in school because Julia started their trip with a presentation about The Creek and rivers in general. After that, Julia handed out trays full of different artifacts from different job sectors which used the river. I tried my best to help the kids try to decipher what was in front of them, not sure if what I was telling them was correct.

After the lunch break, we suited up in our waders and jackets and moved on to the Creek. It was nice to see the kids so interested in the river and even in myself, asking questions about me and then being shocked when I told them I was only fourteen, trying to find creatures in the mud, and then rushing over to tell me what they found.

When the kids had left, we suited back up and went down to The Creek again in an attempt to find the increasingly rare yellow eel as part of a research task me and josh had been set. To everyone’s surprise, I found a quite sizable one almost immediately in a fast-moving part of the water. This was probably the highlight of my experience. I fully expected to search for hours and never find an eel; this was a great sign that the conservation work done to protect the waterways by the people at Creekside was working.

Overall I feel like I got a great, varied experience from my time at Creekside. Whether it was doing conservation work with Andy and Nick, working on our eel and bird projects with Patty, learning about how the charity worked with Paddy and Kelvin, being on the river with Julia or even just relaxing on my break with Josh, I don’t feel I could have asked for more fulfilling time.

And it was definitely better than being stuck on office block all day!

This blog was written by Howie as part of hist work experience placement