After a long summer break, we are back in Oxford for the local project. It has been two weeks now and they have been challenging yet exciting. The first week was mostly about getting back into the work vibe and understanding the new research question. Personally, I was battling jet lag and the pain of having to move all of my belongings across Oxford on a tow cart. Between all of these and attending sessions daily at the lab, I was thoroughly exhausted.

However, the sessions themselves were very illuminating and fun to attend. I have never done this kind of research before and hence was very excited to learn about the process. We were informed that we were now looking at "Global and Local Mapping", creating a database of projects being undertaken around the world, as one part contributing to an overarching research project. We received a lot of guidance and support from our academic supervisors, helping us break down the project into actionable tasks. I was excited, as it was an opportunity to contribute to something bigger and helping the local community. 

The second aspect of the work was to plan out the extracurricular sessions for the schools. We were going to run a Geography Club. Part of the challenge was that we were going to go to two different schools and teach kids of different ages, which meant that we would have to modify and adapt our session to make it more age appropriate for each group. I was very nervous before the first session, as attempting to teach 10 teenage kids by making them stay in the school for an extra hour was very daunting. However, the actual session turned out to be quite fun. 

In the coming weeks, we will be working on building the database and planning the future club sessions. I am looking forward to building on this positive start to the month and working with the rest of my team to create quality research.