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Sea Our Seas Program
During the summer of 2024 we stepped out of the woodland and onto the foreshore along the Firth of Forth! Thanks to funding from SeaChangers we ran our first, hugely successful workshops focused on marine wildlife and conservation! You can read the comments below which show just some of the positive feedback and how much our local families learnt about coastal wildlife and local conservation.
What did our participants say about how they benefitted from the sessions?
“Information and knowledge on identifying lots of different birds”
“New knowledge gained of sea life”
“We went to the first Sea Changers at Bo’ness and the kids loved it that much, we werelucky to get spaces on the other two sessions. Judith’s ability to adapt to the kidsneeds and genuine interest in the kids came out in each session.”
“Getting to know surroundings and getting new knowledge of animals and environment”
We don’t want the success of these workshops to stop there, so we are introducing the “Sea our Seas” programme. This aims to offer local people in the community and local schools to get involved in similar workshops or organise similar activities themselves through the signposting on this page.
If you are a local school or organisation that would like us to run a workshop for you, please get in touch with Judith. We can offer workshops in a range of locations along the foreshore and focus on a range of topics including but not limited to:
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Scottish marine mammals
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Scottish seabirds
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Under your feet – shells, crabs and all things beach!
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Marine threats and conservation
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Citizen scientists
Marine Conservation Society
We couldn’t have organised our Summer 2024 workshops without the help of the Marine Conservation Society (MCS). This is an organisation working hard towards a cleaner, better protected, and healthier ocean - and the great news is that you can help them out too.
At every workshop we ran a beach clean; this involved collecting and surveying the litter that we found over a 100m stretch of beach. We then submitted the data to MCS, who compile this and use it both nationally and internationally to help campaign for projects that will help our oceans. View details of the data they collated from 2023 below.
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You don’t need to wait for us to run another workshop to help continue this vital service – you can volunteer at numerous beach cleans throughout the area or easily set up your own. MCS also run volunteer training for anyone interested in volunteering for them and running beach cleans.
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For those of you in Falkirk, you can borrow litter picking equipment for free from the council. Please see the following link for more information: Rubbish & litter - Organising a local Clean Up | Falkirk Council
Local Marine Projects
Want to find out more about the marine conservation projects are taking place around the Firth of Forth? Click on the links below!
Find out how Restoration Forth is re-introducing oysters and seagrass habitats into the Forth estuary.
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Find out what they are doing on Fidra Island to help puffins and other Seabirds
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​Marine planning in Scotland | NatureScot
Find out about Local Islands Scottish Seabird Centre
And elsewhere in Scotland...Oysters are also being re-introduced
Oysters in Dornoch Firth | Ocean emergency | Marine Conservation Society (mcsuk.org)
Marine Wildlife
And of course, what is it that we are trying to protect? A range of links below will lead you to further information about the marine wildlife that we are working so hard to protect and educate people about.
Marine and coastal habitats and species | NatureScot
Scotland's big five marine species | Scottish Wildlife Trust
