TY2015: My Wacky Week at BEES

Chloe Dissanayaka, Loreto College, Dublin

My week started on Monday the 26^th of January. The day commenced at 10am in the Cooperage building, when I walked in I met Dr Emily Goldstein for the first time and she was very welcoming. She handed me a folder containing a schedule for the week it also contained a couple of leaflets informing us on the courses that were available in the school of BEES.

The first activity we did was we all introduced ourselves as we were in a group of 36 then that was split into two groups of 18. After hearing all the introductions I gathered that the majority of people were either from Cork or the surrounding counties. It was a bit daunting being the only person from Dublin and not knowing anyone but I found it very easy to make friends as we all had something to talk about which was science. After our quick introduction we had a brief meeting with Dr Sarah Culloty the Head of the School of BEES.

Over the week we had a lot of lectures from the various Professors, Doctors, Undergraduates and post-graduates I think my favourite lecture was the Ecology/Zoology lecture by Prof. Gavin Burnell. I found it most interesting because I have a real interest in Zoology and although I didn’t really have an opinion on Ecology I have started to gain an interest in it.

We also had some practical’s and my favourite practical out of all the ones we did was the Terrestrial Ecology Practical with Dr Simon Harrison found I thought this was really good because we got to go out into the field and collect some pitfall traps which were as simple as a few plastic cups with water and anti-freeze so the water wouldn’t freeze over night. After collecting the traps we brought them into a lab and emptied the contents into a giant petri dish which we then looked at using a binocular microscope. While I was looking at a little woodlouse it started moving and I then noticed that a lot of the little creatures were moving and It gave me a heart attack( not literally) but it was funny so I didn’t mind.

I would really recommend this course to anyone even if you’re not considering BEES you never know what could interest you!!!