On the 17th of March, team leader Casey Zinkievich, scientific coordinator Harry Allard (me) and dive officer Leo Jhaveri spent the afternoon at Sunnyside Primary School in Stepps. We spoke to the P7 class about coral reefs, marine conservation, and how to pursue an academic career in biology.
As a specialist conservation primary school, the children knew a lot about the threats faced by marine ecosystems and how we work to protect them. After our talk, we showed off some of the equipment used by scientific SCUBA divers and showed some videos of exciting wildlife experiences we’ve had in the name of research.
At the end, we asked the class to create posters to show other people why coral reefs are important- which we will share in the next blog post. The P7 class were great listeners and really enthusiastic, and it’s encouraging to know that the future of conservation science is in the hands of such conscientious kids. Sunnyside Primary is a great school, with a real focus on teaching the importance of conservation, environmentalism and animal welfare alongside the core primary school curriculum. Schools like Sunnyside and outreach from conservation researchers like us are both key to mitigating the destruction of the environment. We’d like to thank Sunnyside Primary for being such great hosts and for keeping us inspired as scientists.
University of Glasgow Egypt Expedition 