Travel award reports
‘Bags full of souvenirs and minds full of memories’ Joint report, University of Glasgow Iceland Expedition 2021
Skálanes Nature and Heritage Centre Centre
The University of Glasgow Iceland Expedition is a project that has been running since 2008. It is a six-week zoological expedition to the Skálanes Nature and Heritage Centre in Eastern Iceland. Our team in 2021 consisted of six university students, each with their own unique background and skills. Together, we worked as a team to conduct four different research studies on the Icelandic wildlife around the Skálanes area. When we were not busy working, we got to meet amazing new people from different cultures, enjoy hikes and rides around the breath-taking scenery of Eastern Iceland and connect with Icelandic culture and traditions. We want to share all the amazing skills we learned along the way, and how this experience changed and moved us all. Our little team consisted of two leaders and four other members. Our leaders, Clara Gyhrs and Avery Holmes, both MSci students, made sure the expedition was well planned, and together they ran a project studying the arctic foxes in the area. The other expedition members
Photo: Bethan Hall-Jones
each had their own responsibilities. Emma Watson, an environmental science graduate, conducted an observational study on a puffin sub-colony. Lotta Ruha, a third-year zoology student, had a research project investigating microfibre accumulation in eider ducks. Our youngest member, the first-year zoology student Abi McLelland, led a project on monitoring population numbers of northern fulmars and blacklegged kittiwakes. Bethan Hall-Jones, a recent physics graduate, was our ‘everything woman’. She helped with all the research projects while updating our social media, taking pictures of the wildlife, and baking cakes. As our expedition team now feels like a little family, it is strange to remember the days when we did not know each other. Our journey began already in autumn 2019 when the team for the Iceland Expedition 2020 was chosen. This was followed by a busy year of planning our research projects, running fundraising events and applying for grants while trying to keep up with our
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