Immersive Rainforest at the Museum

On February 13^th, 2026, Cross River Gorilla Project (CRGP) Youth Ambassador Vivienne Daniels spends the afternoon helping local charity with Home Educator Event at The Great North Museum: Hancock

Over 260 people attended the Home Educator Day at the Great North Museum: Hancock; Vivienne as Youth Ambassador assisted CRGP in taking students around their immersive rainforest exhibition.

The idea was to provide an immersive rainforest experience to Home Educated students and to incorporate sensory items to make the exhibition more engaging for the students.

Vivienne was excited to see “such young children so interested in the conservation of our planet” and helped guide the students around the exhibition while providing information about the critically endangered Cross River Gorilla.

Students followed the red ant trail around the exhibition and were asked to tuck their trousers into their socks to protect themselves from the ants. They were given flashlights and searched for an array of rainforest creatures found around the exhibition.

As a Rainforest Ranger taking students through the exhibition Vivienne provided valuable information to the students and offered fun facts like, “Did you know there are less than 300 Cross River Gorillas remaining in the wild and despite their daunting size their diet consists mainly of plants.”

“Students were fascinated by the life and habitat of the Cross River Gorilla, and it was such fun to participate as a ranger”, said Vivienne.

A tent was also set up where students could touch and smell items from the rainforest and there was a game of rainforest top trumps created by Newcastle University Students Against Species Extinction (S.A.S.E), who were also there acting as Rainforest Rangers.

Students ended their rainforest experience with writing a question to the African rainforest communities and putting their leaf shaped questions on the GROW tree which filled with leaves and showed all of the interest and curiosity of local North East students about the rainforest and their communities. The queries will be sent to Cameroon and answered, and all answers from the rainforest communities will be published on the Cross River Gorilla Project website.

Reflecting on the afternoon, “It was a wonderful day of immersive learning, and I loved how inclusive it was for the Home Educated students so all learners could enjoy the immersive rainforest experience at the museum and feel they can play a part in protecting the world’s most critically endangered gorilla.” said Vivienne.

For more information on The Cross River Gorilla Project visit - https://www.crossrivergorillaproject.co.uk/