Reaseheath College

Teacher Kevin Palmer, travelled with a group of students from Reaseheath College for an educational wildlife experience with African Conservation Experience (ACE) in 2023, but this was far from their first experience with ACE. Reaseheath have chosen to volunteer with ACE every year for over a decade.

Here’s what Kevin had to say about why Reaseheath choose to travel with ACE each year and how this specific trip went for him and his students:

What motivated you to organise this trip for your school?

I really wanted to give the students an alternative conservation experience that really brought in the realities of conservation being studied in a challenging and novel environment, such as Southern Africa.

Do you think the hands-on conservation work your students have participated in has provided them with valuable lessons that will benefit them in their future careers?

Yes, I think the students have honed a lot of the skills that they already possess as a result of working within the university centre from a practical point of view and I think working out here at Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre has really allowed them to, as I say, hone their skills, but enhance them further by applying them to a wider variety of different species.

In your opinion, has the experience of working with a team at the rehabilitation centre equipped your students with useful and practical skills in the welfare management?

I feel the variety of the experiences that the students get here at Moholoholo and the contact with the staff members here, the expertise of the staff, really gives them an invaluable insight and some alternative perspectives as to the way they go about animal husbandry and animal welfare. This is an exciting alternative to what they experience in the UK.

What value do you think there has been to having an ACE team on the ground?

Having members of the ACE team on the ground has been really useful in that it offers students a great deal of context and shared expertise. So many of the ACE team members have been really valuable in sharing their personal and life experiences with the students to really give them that alternative perspective that they often need.

What have been the highlights for you and your students so far?

I think if you were to ask the students, definitely the babies and the diversity of species that they accommodate here at Moholoholo and probably the range of different things that they get to do from a husbandry perspective.

What type of schools or colleges do you think would be interested in the type of trips we offer organisers? And the projects we support?

I think these kinds of experiences should be available to all academic institutions, regardless of the level or the type of students. ACE provide a really flexible range of packages that are befitting of any student or any level. From a personal development point of view, they also provide professional guidance to the students.

What would you say is the value of ACE running this trip?

I feel African Conservation Experience really take a lot of the emphasis of the logistics and the planning away from the academic team, which is really helpful. It allows us to rely on them from an expertise point of view. ACE have been very thorough and meticulous in the planning and that's been really helpful from an academic perspective. There's a huge amount of value in using ACE to organise such trips.

I think ACE offer exceptional value for money in terms of the experience that the students receive, the novel and challenging environment in the context that they get to study in and the expertise of the staff. In the 15 years that I've been working with ACE I've never had a student on these trips say that they've not had significant value for money so it's certainly something I would recommend for other academic institutions.