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Personal Projects Skills Day

Preparation for personal projects

The group coming together for the first time following Jambowlree in February 2024!

In order to help us in prepare for our project work in the Arctic, our Scouts and Leaders attended Wildwood Trust Kent, where we linked up with the education team. Steve Kirk, Natural Heritage Officer, took our group out for the day to teach us a variety of surveying skills of flora and fauna, as well as share his incredible knowledge about the behaviours and evolutionary adaptions of Arctic animals including Arctic Foxes and Reindeer. We then ended our morning of learning with pizza for lunch and then atalatl throwing- ancient spear throwing!

Steve was able to teach us a number of different surveying skills, why we use them, the importance of recording, best practice methods to ensure the efficacy of our studies and how to use the different tools in surveys and samples. This included quadrants for flora surveys, how to set up small mammal traps, and using identification keys to look at different insects in leaf litter. Below is a picture of Samuel using a pooter to suck the bugs into the pot for closer examination.

Samuel using a pooter to examine the bugs he and team mate Amy found in their leaf letter.

In this next picture, Steve showed us how to use a quadrant to identify how much plant life can be found growing in a particular area. Unfortunately, being autumn, this is not quite the right time of year to undertake this study as plants are starting to die off. That said, we still learned about how to ensure random sampling to prevent bias in our studies.

Quadrant in action with Steve in between fungi identification

Following our survey sessions, Steve shared with us his exceptional knowledge of reindeers and arctic foxes. The group were impressed to know that reindeer actually see in ultra violet and their heels also click as they walk, which enables them to navigate in such poor conditions such as a snow blizzard as they can hear one another.

Photo of reindeer by Lydia Vadgama, 12th October 2024

In respect of the Arctic foxes, Wildwood Kent have recently had babies, known as cubs or pups. The pups have already grown quite big having been born earlier in the year in May and they have already started growing into their winter coats. We observed the pups playing with a variety of enrichment toys, encouraging them to explore, play and practice their hunting skills. We even managed to catch some of them practicing their pouncing. In the wild, Arctic foxes will listen out for small rodents in the snow below them and then nose dive into the snow to capture their prey. Steve also shared with us that historical records indicate Arctic foxes are incredibly inquisitive and rather fearless. It is reported that they were rather comfortable to approach humans, were brazen enough to steal their food, chew their gloves and take their personal possessions! They were relentless in returning to human camps despite often being hit by humans or having things thrown at them for poaching their supplies! They totally live up to the phrase “who dares wins”. We observed some of this behaviour in their enclosure with their enrichment toys.

Photograph of Arctic Fox taken by Lydia Vadgama, 10th October 2024

Overall, this was a truly excellent day. One of our young people Sophie said the following:

I really enjoyed Wildwood with Steve as our guide – he was amazing. He knew loads about everything from mushrooms to atalatl throwing! The techniques that he showed us with collecting data on flora and fauna was really interesting and can definitely help some of us with our project ideas. I can’t wait to go back to Wildwood!

Steve teaching Helen the best technique to throw the atalatl.

Whilst there are no plans currently to undertake a project on spear throwing, the activities of the day really got us to reflect on what we might do as projects moving forwards. Some are exploring the history of navigation and tools used 100 years ago vs today. Some are interested in animal behaviour and the impact of climate change. Others want to look at health and wellbeing whilst living on a boat. I can’t wait to see the results of what we discover and share this with everyone who supported us on this journey.

If you’re interested in accessing some of the amazing learning and training that Wildwood have to offer, get in touch with their education team at: https://kent.wildwoodtrust.org/education-kent/. They can offer bespoke learning for children and adults alike.

If you have any ideas of what we could research whilst in the Arctic, or if you have a research project and you need data collecting from somewhere in the Arctic circle, please get in touch with us as we could possibly help! You can comment below or drop us an email found on our contact us page. Let us know what you think.