Scottish Seas Roadshow Highlights

This year we held World Ocean Week, a dedicated week-long celebration of the ocean with events and activities kicking off from World Ocean Day on the 8th of June.  The Scottish Seas Roadshow got creative and collaborated with the Glasgow Zine Library on a session exploring the work of MCS and the importance of enhancing people's connection to the sea, helping to strengthen our ocean literacy engagement with inland communities (those who live more than 10 miles from the sea). We also learnt about the history of zine making and browsed the libraries environmental collection. Participants really enjoyed the hands-on creative element, making some fantastic zines, asking for the session to be longer and to run it again!

In May we visited the Inclusive Homework Club at Kinning Park to deliver some ocean literacy sessions with two of their ESOL groups (English for Speakers of Other Languages). We delivered an interactive workshop exploring Scotland’s marine life and ocean health, focusing on image-based learning as a way to enhance our knowledge and understanding of marine education. Participants made some beautiful mood boards including words and photos to reflect their learning about our connection to the ocean.

“We were proud to be part of the Scottish Seas Roadshow…it was wonderful to see everyone engaging with the topic, sharing ideas, and getting creative together.” - The Inclusive Homework Club

We have been super busy visiting schools across Scotland from Perth to Edinburgh to Inverness! Across 16 sessions ~400 pupils learnt all about Scotland’s wonderful marine wildlife, including Leatherback turtles and how they are being impacted by ocean plastic. The curiosity levels about the sea were so fantastic with questions like “what is water made of”, “do fish get thirsty?” and “can fish see the air?”. We also made some posters about the Deposit Return Scheme for the World Ocean Week competition. 

Last and certainly not least, we visited Cramond Beach with Friends of Scottish Settlers and several families, with ages ranging from 2-80! FoSS are a charity based in Falkirk dedicated to supporting newcomers to Scotland, including refugees and asylum seekers. For most of the participants it was their first ever trip to a beach. Using our Beachwatch survey forms we were able to remove a whopping 11kg of litter from the beach – equivalent weight of two bowling balls! It was a lovely day of sharing stories, food and making connections. What a fantastic thing it is to see people experience the joys of Scotland’s seas for the first time, as its so easy to take access to the coast for granted.