We were recently lucky to have Ivo join us for a week of work experience. Here is his write up of the week…
Monday morning was straight into a meeting with people from Portsmouth Water Company (PWC), with Steph of the Independent Challenge Group. I listened to how PWC works and how they are trying to reduce the amount of water used by customers. Then I did an online water safety course.
In the afternoon, we went down to Fittleworth Primary School to help Cathy, the Water Champion for Schools and Young People. She was talking about rivers to year 6 pupils. They built models of chalk streams, with tin foil, rocks, sticks and other things they found on the school field.
The next day, Tuesday, I met Cathy again, this time at Fishbourne Church. I helped her kick sampling with year 3 pupils from the primary school. We walked across the fields to near where the stream joins Fishbourne Creek (before it flows into Chichester Harbour). We found freshwater shrimps, a few flounders and an eel, which everyone thought was cool. Later in the day we walked along the coastal path to the edge of the harbour, where Cathy talked to the children about the river.
On Wednesday my field work was postponed because of the extreme heat, which was disappointing because I was looking forward to surveying for water voles. Instead I spent the day doing some research, including watching videos on aquifers and calculating how much water my household uses.
Thursday saw me riverfly sampling with Sarah, Chalk Stream Resilience Officer, and two other volunteers. We stationed ourselves in the shade by the ford across the Hambrook at Nutbourne. It was more kick sampling, but this time looking for different creatures – riverflies to find out how healthy the stream is. Counting the freshwater shrimps was painstaking!
On Friday I had a catch up meeting with Stef who explained more about what his Independent Challenge Group does and why Portsmouth Water is so cheap. In the afternoon I went to Cowdray with Aimee to meet Dr Marnie Lovejoy, Chair of the Grayling Society. We talked about how the WSRT could help people improve the quality of the rivers to encourage grayling to come. They are an indicator species. When they leave you know something is wrong with the river. So it is a good sign if they are in your river.
I am very happy that I did my work experience with the Western Sussex Rivers Trust. I learnt a lot about why and how we need to protect our rivers and enjoyed it too.
