12 Education Education Officer, Andrew, gives us an update on everything he has been up to, including collaboration with the Prince’s Trust.
We have reached the end of another busy summer term, and we were pleased to welcome hundreds of children from many schools to engage with our education programme. Many school groups have visited us before and enjoyed their experiences so much they wished to return with new classes. But there were also several schools that had never been here before, and these too we hope will return. The overwhelmingly positive feedback we have received from teachers suggests so!
Towards the end of 2017 we launched a competition for schools to “find the next David Attenborough”. We challenged schools to narrate a short film of the gannets on the Bass Rock. We had many wonderful entries from many talented children. Our winner was Fraser Findlay from Armadale Primary School in Bathgate. He delivered a wonderful commentary, very confidently and described the action on screen perfectly! As a reward, he and his whole class came to visit the Seabird Centre to see Fraser’s prize-winning film on the big screen in our Wildlife Theatre. We also welcomed from Sunnyside Primary School the winning class of another competition run by Keep Scotland Beautiful. They made a fantastic sculpture called ‘Gannet With A Sore Tummy’, a poor gannet with a glass stomach full of fish and plastic straws! As part of their prize they got a free education workshop with us here, and their sculpture has been on display in our Education Centre all through the summer term so that all visiting classes this year can see it and learn an important message about plastic waste in our seas.
We have been keen for a long time on getting children to visit us that ordinarily may struggle to get here for various reasons, including economic ones. Thanks to our funders, we have been able to help children from schools identified as being in the lowest 15% on the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation. By organising transport for these groups, we have seen a steady increase over the last few years in classes from deprived areas, and this year we saw our highest numbers yet. Many children had access to nature and outdoor learning that would not have been available otherwise, and some enjoyed their first ever visit to the seaside! Another way to break down barriers to marine education was to take it to them! I was lucky to be able to visit a class in St. Martin’s Primary School with severe disabilities that made transport difficult. I was able to teach them about some key Scottish sea creatures, with lots of fun sensory activities to help them learn. We hope to be able to bring the class out to the beaches here one day soon.
The next David Attenborough:
We challenged schools to narrate a short film of the gannets on the Bass Rock. We had many wonderful entries from many talented children.
Scottish Seabird Centre magazine
