EDEN PROJECT (THE

Riya Evani Sachdeva, Christ Church, First Year Undergraduate, BA Geography, Remote internship

Work Projects

The Eden Project was working in

conjunction with LimeLight Sports which is a

sports marketing company who have run

events such as London Triathlon, Asics 10k

and Hackney Half-marathon. The Eden

Project wanted to create their own running

event which had a more environmental

focus and focused on educating people about the environment with an aim of running it 4

times a year to coincide with different seasons. During the internship, I was one of 3 Oxford

interns and was assigned to the research element of the project.

My role included me finding research materials on various topics to do with benefits of

spending time in nature, physical and mental benefits of running, growth and trajectory of

virtual sporting events and many other topics. I had to make sure that these sources were

credible and after conducting extensive research across 12 topics in total, I extracted various

highlights and facts that could be made into infographics and posted on social media to

encourage others to participate in our Run.

For the next stage of the internship, I developed a research and evaluation plan which

detailed every aspect of the project from it's initial aims, what outcomes we wanted to see,

stakeholders and how we were going to carry out the event. By collaborating with others

and receiving relevant guidance along the way, I filled in the plan to make it comprehensive

enough for the team to take forward. From our initial research, I identified potential research gaps/evidence gaps i.e. topics which didn't have any evidence on the internet. I

collated these together and designed research questions around these that we could pose

to runners after the event in a post-event survey so we could collect up-to-date and

relevant research.

Lastly, I led the search in finding potential research partners spanning the environmental

and sporting sphere as they would help to increase the validity of our research. The support

provided by Eden and LimeLight employees was invaluable - they helped me at whatever

stage I required help at and gave me relevant feedback on my tasks whenever I required.

They were extremely accommodating for any issues I had and made sure I wasn't doing too

much work or work that was too difficult for me and constantly stayed on top of everything

by checking in quite often. Despite our inexperience in comparison to the Eden and

Limelight employees, our opinions and ideas were highly respected by everyone and we

were listened to and heard at every stage of the internship.

Daily Life

For my remote internship, I would generally start at 9am with a few meetings starting

earlier. Twice a week, we'd have a meeting at 9:30am checking in with the team to see what

everyone was up to. Throughout the day I'd tend to have 2, maybe 3 meetings with some

days quieter than that, but in between the meetings I was working on the required work I

had at each stage of the internet or collaborating with the other interns to make sure set

pieces of work were completed on time.

I'd also have a lot of emails to respond to scheduling next meetings or offering input/suggestions on what other members of the team were working on. Many of the

emails had documents for us to read about other areas of the project such as what the

marketing team was getting up to or the progress with getting in contact with partners/ambassadors and throughout the day I would be reading these to make sure I was

up-to-date on where we were in the project. Working from home wasn't the most

favourable as it was a bit harder to motivate myself, but eventually I established a routine

and made sure every hour or so, or after long meetings that I'd get up and go for a short

walk.

In addition, I tried to maintain a consistent bedtime and waking-up time so that it would

simulate the same conditions of in-person working. The team tried to make sure we didn't

spend too much time behind the screen and very rarely would anyone be working past 5pm.

To relax and wind down, I made sure that after I'd finished work for the day that I spent

some time outside if I could or go for a long walk. In addition, I watched TV shows or tried to

catchup with friends outside working hours in order to maintain a good work-life balance.

Lasting Impressions

I really enjoyed the internship. This

was because not only was the work

enjoyable, but the team was so

friendly and welcoming and made

every day of work better. The

experience was so different to

anything I had every done before, but in a good way. Because the project we were working

on was so new, it gave us the freedom to almost take it in any direction we wanted. In

addition, it likens it to a start-up - I'd never been involved in something like this, but we

were given a lot of responsibility despite our age an were trusted to direct the project as we

saw fit.

I gained a huge amount from it - not only has it helped to improve my qualitative and

quantitative research skills, but I have formed long-lasting connections with various

members of the team who have helped me so much throughout the project. I have also

gained transferable skills that I can apply to all aspects of my life. I think had the internship

been in-person, I might have had the opportunity to gain more such as developing my

interpersonal skills and improving my communication skills as presenting over zoom isn't

the same, but the virtual aspect of it meant that people from all across the country were

able to be connected.

The experience has somewhat helped to confirm my career ambitions - I have always been interested in either consulting or working for a social/environmental enterprise and by

taking part in this internship, I had the chance to do both by advising people on ideas, and

working for the Eden Project. I thoroughly enjoyed the work I completed here and would

definitely consider going into non-profit work in the environmental sphere or potential

sustainability consulting where I get to combine the career aspects I like.

Zoe Rhoades, St John’s College, Second Year Undergraduate, BA Human Sciences, A mixture of in-person and remote working

Work Projects

I was working on one of the Eden

Project's 'most ambitious projects' called

Run Of The Earth, a global virtual running

event on the 13th November. I was

working with 3 other interns and a small

team of about 10 people overall to make

good progress on the project. My main tasks were: research about the benefits of running/exercising outside/being part of a community group; compiling a data base on public figures who are keen runners and/or

care about the environment; emailing the chosen public figures asking them to be

ambassadors; sourcing and starting the discussions about buying sustainably produced and

ethically made yellow shoelaces for the event; myself and the other interns got to present

to the CEO at the Eden Project, and other crucial members of staff. I received great support

from the Eden Project team, especially the project manager. They were all very busy

working on other things as well, so I got a good insight into the other projects going on at

the Eden Project and what types of jobs people there have.

Daily Life

There wasn't a daily routine during my internship. I love how varied it was, keeping me

interested and on my toes. We were working towards a fast approaching deadline to launch

the Run Of The Earth so it was fast paced and evolving quickly. I spend day 2-3 of my

internship in Cornwall for the induction with most of the team and the other 2 inters. We

got to look around the Eden Project site, and learn more about the project we would be

working on.

After that the first 2 weeks was online, but I was doing desk research for this time so I did

not mind. After that, I was shown around the London office, and chose to go into the office

most days. Sometimes there was no one there (due to COVID) but other times there was the

London based Eden Project team working there and occasionally my internship boss would

come in from Cornwall for a couple of days for other meetings. The office atmosphere was