Five more first year undergraduates have been given the opportunity to take part in overseas research projects with academics from their universities through the Society’s Learning and Leading Field Apprenticeship grants.
Designed to provide first year undergraduates with an opportunity to participate in overseas research that would not otherwise be available to them, each Field Apprenticeship consists of a £2,000 grant which enables the student to accompany an academic from their university on a research project overseas.
This year’s research projects cover a wide range of topics, from investigating the effects of warming temperatures on hydrological systems in a glacial environment in Switzerland to palaeoenvironmental reconstruction of environmental change in Patagonia.
Tom Gribbin, one of this year’s Field Apprentices, is joining Professor Martyn Tranter (University of Bristol) and an international team of experts on the ‘Black and Bloom’ expedition in Greenland. The only undergraduate on the team, Tom will assist the scientists in investigating how microbial processes darken and accelerate the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet.
Tom says of the opportunity: “The Field Apprenticeship means I can join a project that’s helping to answer one of the big questions in science: why the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet is accelerating. It is so exciting to be able to participate in overseas field research – particularly because opportunities like this as an undergraduate are few and far between! I’m also excited to experience living and working on an ice sheet”.
Forming part of our Learning and Leading programme, the Society’s Field Apprenticeship grants have supported 40 first year undergraduates on research projects since the programme began in 2009, providing students with valuable fieldwork skills and an opportunity for personal development.
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