How can I encourage my daughter’s interest in endangered species/conservation

[AmberRose86]

My daughter is 11 and she’s fascinated by endangered species and the causes of it, the work done by conservationists etc to save them from extinction, environmental issues etc.

I’m so proud of her. She feels so strongly about it but doesn’t know how or where to direct it, if that makes sense. I wondered if anyone had any suggestions of what I could do to encourage this a bit?

You could encourage her to work towards an IGCSE in Environmental Management or Marine Science? They are excellent, interesting GCSEs which she can study in her own time or with an online course. I think every child in the UK should study Environmental Management IGCSE! If she’s keen she can sit the exams privately at any age.

Depending on where you live, she could get involved with the rspb. There are schemes to protect birds such as the stone curlew, great bustard, hen harriers etc.

WWF, RSPB, National Geographic, Woodland Trust, Wildlife Trust, all have great resources for kids. Visit places such as the Natural History Museum, a membership there gets extra access. Look for local volunteer opportunities with an environmental link. She sounds wonderful!

Thank you. ☺️ she really is wonderful.

My sons a zoologist and his interest started from a very young age.

Visiting local wildlife conservation groups, camping and walking, was a young member of the zoological society and watching Attenborough on TV were his go to.

Id also suggest she joins the Young Zoologist club they send out magazines and have lots of events

Subscription to BBC Wildlife magazine?

Keeper Experiences this is at Edinburgh Zoo, but other zoos do them too.

You local Wildlife Trust may have a group for 11-16 year olds. My DD attended one and they did things like weaving hides and checking species in 1m square sections of a field.

Steve Backshall programmes various, Deadly 60 & Expedition especially.

Local conservation groups that do canal clearance etc.

Help her with science at school to make sure she gets a good grounding.

My daughter did a few animal handling courses at a College. Any Uni Open Days nearby with courses that deal with these subjects. Plenty on TV and Steve Back shall is/was touring. Took my daughter to watch Badgers recently. Seeing animals in the wild reinforces the need for conservation imo

Join your closest/best zoo as a member, they often have specialist talks and member days. What type of animals or environments is she specifically interested in? Reptiles like snakes/lizards/torts/turts? Invertebrates? Rainforests? Marine ? Sharks? Big mammals? One you have narrowed it down it gets really interesting.

if she enjoys the “keeping” side of it it can be absolutely fascinating to create and manages microclimate for a reptile. I have kept and bred dozens of unusual species over the years. Egg eating snakes, pancakes tortoises, African Pygmy hedgehogs, pythons etc. Private keepers have been responsible for bringing some species back from the brink of extinction and it’s very easy to get published in journals explaining your experiences and successes and failures. Every species will have journals related to it. For example, I was a member of the British Chelonia Group ( Torts ) and the British herpetological society and both groups ran regular meet ups with guest speakers and education settings.

My experience was purely hobbyist but even so it took me all over the uk and even to Germany and America to help with organising reptile expos.

i would have given my left leg to do a degree in zoology but sadly my dad pushed me to “sensible” and I read English. But I’ve got friends who worked with big cat rescues in South Africa and shark monitoring programs across the world.

You could give her an animal tracking bracelet for Christmas. It gives you a specific animal (whale, orca etc.) to track online on a map and the sale of them funds conservation.

Does your local council have a nature group? They may have monthly conservation meet ups to plant trees, tidy hedges etc. We planted a new hedge, cleared weeds for new trees to grow and coppiced shrubs.
Ours also has a couple of bat walks in the summer.

I was a junior member of my local museum as a child and we did lots of natural history walks. Your local Wildlife Trust will also have stuff for children.

Check out your local LERC. They may have volunteering opportunities and educational workshops, or signpost you to them. E.g. mine does harvest mouse, brown hare and other recording days which include training on how to ID them. Or digitising records/learning how to use mapping software/etc.

Local Wildlife Trusts. They’ll probably have a youth club, will definitely have events at local reserves, and may be able to provide volunteering opportunities - althpugh you may need to go too or it may be only when older.

She could join Zooniverse which is a citizen-science project to help track endangered animals.

My penguin-obsessed child did the penguin section for a while - you log on, see ariel photos with penguins scattered about and click on the penguins. It helps the scientists count the penguin population in different parts of antarctia. And you get email updates on the research etc

https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/penguintom79/penguin-watch

the key thing is, you are making a genuinely useful contribution to the research and you can do it from home

there are also other animals you can count if penguins aren't your thing - the homepage has details.

Oh thank you so much for all these responses 🙂 I’m going to go through them all tonight

Your daughter might enjoy following the U.K. Antarctic heritage Trust
who spend 3 months counting penguins in the Antarctic

They have blogs etc
They go out in October

Theres also the Cambridge based Antarctic Survey …they also have blogs….lots more penguins 🐧

She does love penguins 🐧

Make a bug hotel

Join a local litter pick up group or beach clean up group or do your own

Join your local library for free books, magazines, toys, audio books, local groups & events

I was hoping my son would take a job with the Antarctic Trust and go off to the Antarctic to count penguins
Alas no interest

Hes a big carnivore lover, despite being a vegetarian himself 🤣

@4F00d4Th0ught4 s post has reminded me
My son bought me a bird box, solar powered with an integral camera to watch the birds nest.

Like PP my DD has always had an interest in nature and conservation and is her 2nd year of doing Zoology at Uni.
We subscribed to magazines, encouraged her to get involved with things locally (with us until she was older). She loves her course

Nice to bump into another zoology mum 😁