Five students attending St Martin’s College Sixth Form, recently spent a fortnight in Transylvania carrying out biodiversity surveys and collecting data from forests, meadows and grasslands with the purpose of aiding the local communities.

The expedition was a unique opportunity to practice active citizenship as part of a larger group of volunteers assisting highly professional scientists in their surveys. These annual expeditions are organised by Operation Wallacea (Opwall), an organisation that runs biological and conservation management research programmes in remote locations across the world. The students visited Messendorf and Viscri, two remote Saxon villages situated within the Tarnave Mare Natura 2000 region. They were accompanied by one of their Systems of Knowledge lecturers, Ms Rita Gatt.