Celebrating our Scottish Education Roadshow
2 minute read
From Shetland to Dumfries, our Protecting Scotland’s Seas Roadshow travelled around the country, teaching children and young people about climate impacts and special species.
90% of Scotland’s population now live in urban areas and the number of children playing outdoors has halved in a generation. This, along with the ongoing climate crisis, highlights the need for more ocean and climate literacy in classrooms, and access to coastal environments. Which is where we come in.
Credit: Kirsty Crawford
From September 2021 – September 2022, our ‘Protecting Scotland’s Seas’ roadshow travelled across Scotland, engaging 5,058 children and young people in new workshops, citizen science programmes such as our Great British Beach Clean and the Big Seaweed Search, and immersive outdoor sessions.
As part of the roadshow, we offered assemblies, classroom workshops, beach cleans and citizen science activities in every part of the country from the Shetland Islands to Dumfries and Galloway.
20 beach cleans took place, with the children and young people helping to remove a total of 210kg of beach litter and over 5,000 items from Scottish beaches. Participants also collected data on seaweed, jellyfish, and shark and ray egg cases on Scottish shores, with the surveys submitted to The Big Seaweed Search, Jellyfish Wildlife Sightings and The Great Eggcase Hunt.
Aged from four to 25, participants in our roadshow learned about basking sharks, humpback whales, oysters, puffins, hermit crabs and more. They experimented to understand ocean acidification, looked at our rising ocean temperatures, and came up with an action plan to tackle pollution and marine litter!
Thanks to funding, we were able to support young people in Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation areas, allowing participants to visit the coast for outdoor learning and to access remote, rural areas like the Highlands and Islands.
For some pupils, this was their first experience of the coastline in Scotland.
49
sessions delivered in areas with 50% deprivation
18
sessions delivered in areas with 80% deprivation
1,342
participants reached in areas with 90% deprivation
The impact of this roadshow has reached each corner of Scotland, engaging with over 5,000 pupils in total. I am so proud of the work we have achieved here.
Kirsty Crawford, Volunteer and Community Engagement Manager
Our education work continues to be a success, and an incredibly popular request across Scotland. So, we’re therefore keen to secure further funding so we can continue our work with young people and schools into 2023.
You can book your education session in Scotland for the year ahead here.
We would like to thank Crown Estate Scotland, Britford Bridge Trust and the Scottish Fisherman's Trust for their support in making this project happen.