Earthwatch Student Challenge

"...knowing your dedication to the environment is going to be incredibly useful for the future made the program an incredibly rewarding experience."

During the first week of term 2, I was lucky enough to become a full time ecologist!

I had the opportunity to stay at Calperum station, an old cattle station located in the desert Riverland of South Australia with 10 other students from all over Australia. Over the week we were mentored by the resident ecologists and trained to collect data for the continuous research that they conduct, such as tree health surveys, biological inventory surveys and wetland productivity surveys.

As part of our data collection we were able to count and identify species caught in pitfall traps, such as native mice, dragons, skinks, scorpions and lot’s of wolf spiders, as well as classifying the health of local Blackbox trees.

Research conducted on Calperum is used for studies at University of Adelaide, Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN), The Nature Foundation SA and more, to ultimately understand how the ecosystems work in order to be prepared for future environmental conditions.

Working as an “ecologist” has proved to be hard work and even monotonous at times, but being able to handle some of the local wildlife and explore the woodland while knowing your dedication to the environment is going to be incredibly useful for the future made the program an incredibly rewarding experience.

The Earthwatch Student Challenge is open to all Australian students interested in environmental science and I would highly recommend that interested Matthew Flinders girls apply next year!

Kelly Barrett