Connecting young people to their local coastline ... inspiring the conservationists of the future.
Coastal Connections Wirral gives secondary school students the chance to connect with their local marine environment through citizen science. Students collect ecological data during a shore search or sand dune survey, map their findings in creative ways, and create an exhibition to share their work.
Free to schools. Transport, cover and equipment costs are met by grant funding.
Students on the Wirral live minutes from the shore. Many have never looked at it closely.
Coastal Connections Wirral is a community project that changes that over two days.
Students carry out a shore search or a dune survey, identify and record what they find, and submit their data to the local environmental records centre, the same place professional ecologists send theirs. Their records become part of the actual evidence base for this coastline.
Then they map it. However they choose: illustrated, sculptural, digital, hand-drawn, stitched. The maps become an exhibition their school can see.
What comes out the other end is a class of students who can name the species on their own beach, and who have made something they are proud of about a place they can walk to.
A session with Coastal Connections Wirral
Out on the shore
Half a day on the Wirral coast, timed around the tide. Students work in small groups with recording sheets, ID guides and hand lenses, searching a defined stretch of shore, strandline, rockpool or dune. They record species, abundance and location.
- All equipment and identification support is provided.
- Typical group size is 10 to 15 students.
Back in the classroom
Students turn their records into a map. The brief is deliberately open: the only requirement is that it displays the data in a unique way. Some groups produce careful scientific keys, some produce something closer to art. The session ends with an exhibition of the work for the rest of the school, or for parents.
Into the record
The verified data is submitted Into the record - their afternoon on the beach contributes to conservation efforts in their local area. Students see their own records enter a national dataset that planners, ecologists and conservation bodies use.
The two days can run consecutively or weeks apart, whichever fits the timetable.
The books on the dunes
Last summer, volunteering on the local shore, I found the burnt remains of school books on the sand dunes. A campfire lit after exams, in dry weather, in the middle of a European protected natterjack toad population.
I don’t think those students knew the importance of this habitat for a variety of species.
The secondary school curriculum leaves little time for students to have opportunities to go outside and study their local environment properly. Where fieldwork does happen it usually happens because a specification demands it, with an exam at the end of it. This is different. Students get to be curious in public, on their own coastline, and the work they produce counts towards a real ecological record.
They do not need a documentary about a reef on the other side of the world. It is on their doorstep. They need someone to show them it is there.
What you need to know
We provide
- All survey equipment, hand lenses, quadrats and recording sheets
- Species identification guides for the north-west coast
- On-site ecological expertise for the whole session
- Tide-led site selection and timings
- Site hazard information to support your risk assessment
- Materials for the mapping and exhibition day
- Data submission to the local environmental records centre
You provide
- Staff supervision at your school's normal ratio
- Your own risk assessment and parental consent
- A room and a couple of hours for the mapping day
- Somewhere to display students work
Curriculum links
The session complements the national curriculum.
- Geography: fieldwork enquiry, coastal environments, sense of place, primary data collection and presentation.
- Biology: classification, sampling technique, adaptation, biodiversity and habitat.
- Art and design through the mapping brief.
- Careers and citizen science across both key stages.
It is suitable for Year 7 to Year 11, and the resources can be adapted for the needs of each group.
Sessions are free to schools
Coastal Connections Wirral is not-for-profit. Every grant pound goes to removing the two things that stop good fieldwork happening: cost and cover.
Funding covers transport, teacher cover, equipment and materials. That leaves the school with one thing to find, which is time.
If you fund environmental education, youth engagement or marine conservation, please get in touch. Funding here converts directly into the number of students who get to the shore.
Resource packIn development
A free downloadable resource pack is being written: shore search recording sheets, species identification guides for the north-west coast, mapping briefs, and step-by-step guidance for running the whole thing without an ecologist in the room.
It is designed so that a teacher, youth worker or community leader anywhere on the UK coast can pick it up and use it on their own shoreline.
Who runs it
I'm Kathryn McGrath. I taught geography for 17 years, latterly as a curriculum leader, and hold a master's in Geography Education from UCL. I now work as an assistant ecologist for a north-west consultancy, surveying bats, botany and protected species.
Coastal Connections Wirral sits exactly where those two jobs meet. I know what a head teacher needs to hear before a trip gets signed off, and I know how to run a survey that produces data worth submitting.
Outside work I'm on the coast most weekends, snorkelling, open water swimming, paddleboarding, beach yoga, and I volunteer with the RSPB, the Wildlife Trust and the local environmental records centre. I'm working towards a snorkelling qualification so that students can eventually get into the water as well as onto the shore.
The project was developed through the Ocean Advocate Academy 2026, in connection with the Ocean Conservation Trust.
The Wirral coastline
Sessions run along the wirral peninsula and include beaches, rock pools and dune systems. The peninsula gives students three different coastal habitats within a short drive or walk from their school.
Schools elsewhere in the north-west and in north Wales are welcome to enquire.
Supporters
Questions from schools
What does it cost?
Nothing. Sessions are free to schools, including transport and teacher cover where funding allows. Coastal Connections Wirral is not-for-profit and grant funded.
Who writes the risk assessment?
Your school does, it has to, as the responsible body. I provide detailed site information, hazard notes, tide times and access details so that writing it is quick rather than a research project.
How much curriculum time does it take?
Roughly half a day on the shore plus two to three hours in school for the mapping and exhibition. The two parts do not have to be in the same week.
Which year groups is it for?
Years 7 to 11. Recording sheets and the mapping brief are pitched to the group you bring, so it works as a Year 7 enrichment day or as Year 10 fieldwork preparation.
How many students can come?
Ten to fifteen works well. Smaller groups get more contact time; larger groups are possible with enough school staff.
Do our staff need any specialist knowledge?
No. All the ecological expertise, equipment and identification support comes with the session. Your staff are there to supervise students, not to identify seaweed.
What happens to the data the students collect?
It is checked and submitted to the local environmental records centre, where it joins the regional biodiversity dataset used by ecologists and planners.
What about the weather and the tide?
Sessions are planned around low water, so dates are set by the tide table rather than the timetable. Sessions run in most weather; only genuinely unsafe conditions cause a reschedule, and we agree a fallback date when we book.
Is this only for geography?
No. It fits science, geography and art, and schools have run it as an enrichment or transition activity. The mapping brief is where non-geographers usually get the most out of it.
Do you work outside the Wirral?
The Wirral is home ground, but enquiries from across the north-west and north Wales are welcome. The forthcoming resource pack is designed so that anyone on the UK coast can run their own version.
How do we book?
Send an enquiry through the form below with a rough term and year group, and I'll come back with workable tide dates.
Get in touch
Schools, funders and community leaders all welcome. Enquiries come straight to my inbox and I'll reply with tide-workable dates.