School visits at the beach, festivals and forest activities!

What has surprised me most about doing this internship is the variety of different things that the learning team do. I have now been here at Carlton Marshes for 4 months and have experienced such a range of groups, activities and events. This demonstrates the Trust’s aim to get more and more people connecting with nature, and wanting to take action to create a wilder Suffolk.

Being so close to the coast means that some school visits take place on the beach. In typical British weather fashion, the first group we had were rained on all day, but the children did not complain once! They still got a chance to learn some geography skills such as map creation and how to use a compass. They also had a chance to search the beach for signs of animals and found an array of shells, lots of horn wrack and whelk eggs. However, as they had been learning about plastic pollution at school a few of the children got more excited about litter picking!

A very different event for me was being part of the Suffolk Show. Members of staff from across the Trust helped to give the show visitors a real insight into what the Trust does and its key values. I was part of the team making wildflower seed bombs and we all said we were really encouraged by the conversations we were having with the public. Everyone was so positive and lots of people were proud to tell us that they had sections of their gardens that they were leaving wild that the seed bombs would contribute to perfectly.

Charlotte at the Suffolk Show with a ladybird photo cut-out — Charlotte having fun at the Suffolk Show!

Similarly to the Suffolk Show, I was part of the Suffolk Wildlife Trust team taking part in the First Light Festival in Lowestoft. We set up the Sound Hide so that people could come and experience the dawn chorus from Carlton Marshes. It is so lovely to be able to just sit there and take it all in, as well as test your bird song knowledge. For the children, we had a big papier mache bird that they could come and paint a little section of, and then they were asked to write down their favourite thing about nature on a feather that would then be attached to the bird. It was inspiring to hear all the things they were saying, and especially lovely to hear a boy say Carlton Marshes was his favourite thing about nature.

Papier-mâché bird at First Light Festival being painted by children. — Papier-mâché bird at First Light Festival to be painted by children. They were also encouraged to write their favourite things about nature on individual feathers, which will be attached later, before the bird is featured at Carlton Marshes.

We were recently visited by a couple of nursery and preschool groups who had come to do some dyke dipping and forest activities. It was wonderful to see them all really get stuck in and watch the interest in nature start from such an early age.