{"id":2554,"date":"2026-05-01T09:32:53","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T08:32:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/student-news\/?p=2554"},"modified":"2026-05-01T09:52:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T08:52:11","slug":"kent-diamonds-nature-access-advocate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/student-news\/2026\/05\/01\/kent-diamonds-nature-access-advocate\/","title":{"rendered":"Kent Diamonds: Nature Access Advocate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elinor has improved the accessibility of the annual BioBlitz event, making it easier for everyone to experience nature (over 1500+ species!) on our Canterbury campus. <\/strong><\/h3>\n

“My name is Elinor Casey, and I am in my third year at Kent studying BSc Wildlife Conservation with a Year in Professional Practice. I am currently on my placement year with the University of Kent\u2019s Sustainability team as the Sustainability Projects Officer (Landscape and Biodiversity).\u00a0\u00a0I chose to study Wildlife Conservation because I have always been interested in nature and spending time outside. It is important to me to protect the natural spaces that we have and I am passionate about getting other people involved in taking positive action to improve their local environment.”<\/p>\n

Can you tell us about your work to make wildlife projects, such as the BioBlitz event,\u00a0more accessible? Why is this important to you? <\/strong><\/h3>\n

“I have been the Accessibility Officer for the University of Kent BioBlitz<\/a>\u00a0(a\u00a024-hour\u00a0event collecting data on as many of the species across campus as possible)\u00a0for the last 2 years.\u00a0As a\u00a0first-year\u00a0student I suggested the role of Accessibility Officer\u00a0as I wanted to help allow as many people as possible to\u00a0engage with the nature on our campus and I knew that the BioBlitz would be a great way to do this.\u00a0In my first year as\u00a0Accessibility Officer, one of the ways that I tried to improve the accessibility\u00a0of the event was providing\u00a0information\u00a0such as\u00a0the route distances and terrain type ahead of time.\u00a0This allowed people\u00a0to make\u00a0more\u00a0informed decisions\u00a0on the surveys that they would like to be involved in and helped\u00a0a wide range of people enjoy the day.\u00a0Last year I introduced\u00a0and led\u00a0a new\u00a0fully\u00a0accessible central campus survey route.\u00a0This enabled people to still participate\u00a0in a\u00a0survey even\u00a0if they\u00a0weren\u2019t able to\u00a0walk very far.<\/p>\n

As part of my placement\u00a0year,\u00a0I have expanded on this survey\u00a0route,\u00a0and we will be including it\u00a0in the new Nature Trail (coming soon!)\u00a0My biggest project of my placement year has been the\u00a0My Campus and other Animals\u00a0campaign<\/a>, an outreach campaign with the aim of getting people engaged with the nature on their doorstep.\u00a0Through this I have been working on creating\u00a0nature content such as plant\u00a0fact files,\u00a0in an easily digestible format to help more people be able to\u00a0learn about\u00a0nature.<\/p>\n

As a disabled student myself, it is important to me that other people can see that there are ways of still engaging with wildlife and conservation. People with disabilities may face a diverse range of barriers and I hope that by following my passion for conservation and coming up with solutions to the barriers that I face, I am able to inspire others to do the same.”<\/p>\n

\"Elinor<\/p>\n

Who helps make the Kent community special for you?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

“I feel very lucky that as a conservation student and as a placement student with the sustainability team, I am surrounded by like-minded people who share my love and enthusiasm for the natural world. Within the conservation community, the students and staff that I encounter all have particular areas of interest that they are experts in. I have benefited from their generosity and willingness to share this knowledge and their enthusiasm for a range of topics from bats to bumblebees. The Kent community is also greatly enhanced by the presence of Kent Community Oasis Garden<\/a>. The volunteers that I have met here consist of students, staff and community members and it is a very unique and special place.”<\/p>\n

What advice would you give to<\/strong>\u202fKent<\/strong>\u202fstudents?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

“Spend time in nature! We are so lucky at Kent to have such a beautiful green campus and spending time outside is so beneficial for both our physical and mental wellbeing. Our campus is home to over 1500 species, so you really don\u2019t have to go very far at all to start to see some of them. Engaging with nature doesn\u2019t have to be hard or time consuming, it could be as simple as watching the birds out of your window or spending your lunchbreak on a bench outdoors.”<\/p>\n

\"Elinor<\/p>\n

\u00a0What are your plans for next year?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

“Next year will be my final year as an undergraduate here at Kent so a big part of my year will be writing my dissertation! In addition to this I\u2019m looking forward to continuing to learn as much as I can and to develop new skills such as bird ringing, that will help define my future trajectory towards a career or further studies. I am excited to continue volunteering at Kent Community Oasis Garden and the Great Crested Newt monitoring project as they have been really positive elements of my university experience.”<\/p>\n

Sign up for the BioBlitz 2026<\/a>, taking place on Saturday 30 May and help us to document as many species as possible on our campus and beat last year’s record.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Kent Diamonds campaign recognises the students, staff and alumni that make Kent shine. Learn more about our\u00a0<\/strong>Kent Diamonds<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and our other\u00a0<\/strong>60th<\/sup>\u00a0Diamond Anniversary celebrations<\/strong><\/a>. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elinor has improved the accessibility of the annual BioBlitz event, making it easier for everyone to experience nature (over 1500+ species!) on our Canterbury campus. … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40853,"featured_media":2581,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[312383,309363,183846],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/student-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2554"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/student-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/student-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/student-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40853"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/student-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2554"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/student-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2598,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/student-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2554\/revisions\/2598"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/student-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/student-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/student-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/student-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}