Community Engagement

The marine environment plays an important role for many communities along the Welsh coast, however, it isn’t accessible to all.

Using our flagship species (angelshark, spurdog, common stingray, tope, blue skate and flapper skate) Project SIARC is working with diverse school groups, citizen scientists and underrepresented groups to inspire, engage and gather information on elasmobranchs in Wales.

Schools

Project SIARC aims to inspire the future generation to safeguard the marine environment, by providing a range of interactive sessions with schoolchildren aged between 7 – 13.

3D printing in schools

We are working with schools around Carmarthen Bay and Estuaries SAC to train in 3D printing technology and allow students to design and create 3D model exhibits featuring our flagship species. These displays are then showcased in the Great Glasshouse at the National Botanic Garden of Wales.

Read our 2023 Report

Online ‘Meet the Scientist’ sessions

We are directly engaging with primary schools across Wales with ‘Meet the Scientist” sessions completed via Microsoft Teams. Alongside this, lesson plans and teacher packs provide content to celebrate the Project SIARC flagship species and the marine environment in Wales.

Host a 'Meet the Scientist' session.

Angel Shark Project: Wales bilingual e-book

We’ve developed an eBook for KS2 schoolchildren exploring the heritage of Angelsharks in Wales and how we collaborate to understand this Critically Endangered species.

Download the eBook

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Citizen Science

By working with citizen scientists, we can gather more information about elasmobranchs in Wales whilst inspiring volunteers to engage with their local marine environment.
We are focusing on three main citizen science activities:

Recording the presence of eggcases on local beaches as part of The Shark Trust’s ‘Great Eggcase Hunt'

Equipped with all the necessary tools, communities and practitioners will be discovering elasmobranchs eggcases in their local area in a series of events run by NWWT and Shark Trust.

Download our Eggcase ID Guide

Learn more

Help our research by identifying species using the online Instant Wild Platform

Anyone with access to the internet can become a citizen scientist by reviewing underwater video footage from the coast of Wales, hosted on Instant Wild Project SIARC Portal. New to shark ID? No problem – we’ve developed a training course to help you tell the difference between species.

Visit Instant Wild

Delving into the archives to gather historic records of elasmobranchs

Citizen scientists will be trained in archival research and scour their local archive, library, or museum for elasmobranch records, helping to unlock historical importance of elasmobranchs and their heritage in Wales.
Our archiving research has now come to an end, but don’t worry.. you can still get involved in our other citizen science activities!

Take a look at our findings

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Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

There is an urgent need to diversify opportunities for involvement in marine conservation. Through collaboration and research including interviews and focus group discussions, we’re working to identify communities underserved by marine conservation, the barriers to participation and measures to achieve greater diversity and inclusion across Wales. We’re sharing learning with our partners and implementing changes within our work with fishers and citizen science programmes.

The Project SIARC flagship species will also be used to develop a new appreciation for the underwater environment in Wales, opening access and enabling the engagement of underrepresented groups.

Take a look at this infographic showing our findings so far

Engaging people from diverse backgrounds improves conservation practices and benefits academic research (Smith et al. 2017; Resnik et al. 2015). Project SIARC recognises that it must do more to diversify opportunities, by understanding different audiences (identities), values and needs, to appeal to a wider demographic of people and support audiences to engage with marine conservation in Wales.  

The Project SIARC EDI review 2021-2023 synthesises work and learning from Project SIARC between 2021 and 2023, community-based research, project partner experiences within and beyond Project SIARC, and advice from EDI practitioners.  

Between 2023 – 2026 Project SIARC will work to deliver the Project SIARC: Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) action plan, specifically focused on supporting the projects approach to working with local community partners (Project SIARC objectives 3 & 5) and fisher partners (Project SIARC objectives 1 & 2) in North Wales. As a project we will also actively work to exchange learnings from the delivery of this action plan into other areas of our work. A mid-term progress report on progress towards reaching our targets is proposed for 2025, and a review of this action plan will take place in the lead up to the end of the projects current funded period in March 2026 to inform further strategic thinking for the next phase of the project. 

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Project SIARC is a multidisciplinary project working with fishers, citizen scientists, researchers, local communities and government to safeguard sharks, skates and rays and support a green recovery in Wales.

Find out how you can get involved