CSES/ARU Christmas Lectures : Animal Encounters

We are delighted to invite you to join us again at ARU for our annual Christmas Lectures. Now in their third year, we offer these events, FREE OF CHARGE, to every secondary school in Essex. The series has already welcomed well over a thousand students as renowned experts in their fields have shared their knowledge of their chosen areas in science and engineering! We hope that this year you will bring your students along as Animal Presenter Grace Dickinson introduces us to the fascinating world of Animal Encounters.

Do you love being in the company of your pets or seeing animals in other settings such as farms, zoos or in the wild? Maybe you prefer to keep your distance from our furry, scaly, or feathered friends. In this presentation Grace Dickinson will talk about human-animal relationships from the earliest times to the present day, including the therapeutic effects of interacting with animals, and her experiences training animals for both human interactions and filming. How do you teach a mouse to tackle an assault course? Why doesn't a rat like to eat from a man's beard, and how can you overcome that? How can you persuade a lizard to do what you want it to? We will hear the answers to all of these questions and much more!!

We might even get to meet a few four, six or eight legged film stars too.

Grace Dickinson is an animal presenter, educator, movie animal wrangler and managing director of “Reptiles Etc”. She began working professionally in zoos and as a film industry wrangler/trainer in 2002 (with many years voluntary work previous to this!) specialising in herpetology, falconry, education, displays and animal behaviour and training. She has enjoyed a career spanning a variety of taxa as well as zoological collections both in the UK and abroad, alongside working in reptile rescue and rehoming as well as wildlife rehabilitation and conservation volunteering, plus a stint as a keeper/instructor at an animal college teaching FE and HE courses as an exotics specialist. Grace has a National Diploma in Animal Care, BSc Hons Degree in Animal Behaviour, LANTRA falconry qualification, animal transport certification, C&G Award in Education and Training, Diploma in Animal Assisted Therapy and Diplomas in Understanding Autism and Mental Health first aid and advocacy in the workplace.

Places tend to be booked very quickly for our lectures! To ensure you don't miss out please book today.

To register your interest please contact nigel.stephens@cses.org.uk stating how many students you would like to bring and whether you have a preference for the AM or PM session or if you could attend either session.

We understand that, for some schools travelling longer distances, the timings for the event can make lunch provision difficult. If this is an issue for you please let us know and we will talk to the Catering Dept at ARU to see if they can accommodate your students in their food hall. Please note though that ARU is a cash free campus and that all food and drink would need to be paid for by a card or app.