After two exciting weeks travelling to London and Scarborough, week 5 was back in the office, but still just as exciting. At the beginning of the week, we were given our potential internship projects. These form our main focus of work flowing through the internship. We both do a big joint project alongside a smaller independent project. This meant the rest of the week was filled with chats and research to help us decide what we wanted to pursue.
For our independent projects we have both chosen really cool topics. Ryan is pursuing a project looking into the social benefits of projects such as Wilder Humber and how this might transfer into natural capital. He’ll tell you more about this in the next blog after a few exciting activities he is doing. My independent project will be looking into the feasibility of different survey techniques used for the Pacific oyster (Magallana gigas) and how this could inform future Pacific oyster management practices in North Norfolk. Pacific oysters were introduced to the UK in the 1800’s and since then have been spreading rapidly around the coast and can negatively impact native biodiversity. I’m really excited to get started and see if I can make a meaningful impact into how we monitor and control their populations.
For our joint project we’re looking into the feasibility and potential optimisation of rock in offshore wind farms. Rock is needed as scour protection (protection from currents) around the base of wind turbines, but it also can negatively impact the natural state of the site it is put into. This makes the project really interesting as we will have to navigate both sides of the argument and reach a middle ground that benefits all parties along with nature itself.
Both my projects are new areas for me and different to what I have researched in the past. It’s great to be sinking my teeth into something that’s new to me.
