Scientific outreach and research go hand in hand, with clear value in being able to communicate your science effectively and efficiently to the public. That’s particularly true if the public is involved in your research, where outreach can also mean recruitment!
My research relies on just that: using a citizen-science derived database on opportunistic sightings of stranded marine animals. People in the community find animals and then report them to the Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme (SMASS) who then validate and further investigate the report. This process builds the foundation of the entire scheme, allowing coverage across Scotland’s extensive 18,000km+ coastline, and could not be done without the work of the public and volunteers. To maintain awareness and involvement, SMASS hosts a variety of outreach events each year.
One of these is the Belladrum Tartan Hearts festival in Inverness. Home to the SMASS Northern Hub, it is a great opportunity to raise awareness and engage with the public. This year we were joined by colleagues from Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust, British Divers Marine Life Rescue, Whale and Dolphin Conservation, Orkney Marine Mammal Research Initiative, Nature Scot and the International Whaling Commission, creating a real menagerie of whale conservation groups! It also meant there was a lot of expertise present on the day, and many opportunities to get involved!
Belladrum is a three-day long event, where people from all walks of life gather. This is really crucial, as often in science communication it seems that you are preaching to the choir, with only people that are already interested engaging with your work. At the festival, we are able to chat to people that had (or thought they had) no interest in marine mammals, presenting a really unique opportunity to change their minds! However, it does make engagement a little bit tricky, and so we try to think of fun ways each year to entice people in and start chatting.
A key element is having something interesting on display. Colleagues from the National Museums Scotland brought up an array of whale and dolphin bones that were displayed around our stall. The giant vertebrate and man-sized jaw bones attracted a lot of attention. They are very tactile too which is a nice way to allow people to really engage with the whales. It’s also a good segue into SMASS and strandings, which can be the grim side of whale conservation…
We also had several elements aimed at kids, as they tend to have really interesting questions and want to chat about whales and dolphins all day! This year we had a whale face paint stand, with killer whales in all different colours adorning cheeks, legs, and arms. I was on face-paint duty, and despite my not-so-perfect work, I really enjoyed chatting away to kids who often seemed to have an encyclopedic knowledge of whales! It also presents a great chance to talk with their parents, where you highlight the different ways to get involved. We always have lots of leaflets, stickers and QR codes on hand so people can easily access those details again once they are home.
With all of this hubub we attracted a steady stream of festival goers, with an estimated 400 people over the course of the event. There was a lot of interest in volunteering and contributing data to SMASS, with lots of downloads of our Beach Track app. The app is aimed at gathering data on strandings and reporter effort, to give us an idea of where the blind spots might be. People from conservation groups across Scotland also came and chatted, resulting in us establishing more connections and even setting up some more engagement events.
Getting involved in science outreach is a really fun part of research, you get to chat to people about the work that you do and why it’s important. I always end up having really interesting conversations. So if you ever get the opportunity, I would highly recommend getting involved. You could even reach out to festivals and community events near you to see if you can have a stall. You never know what it might lead to!
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This article was written by Rachel Lennon, a 3rd year PhD student at the University of Glasgow studying marine animal health with the Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme.