Skip to content
All articles
  • All articles
  • About whales & dolphins
  • Create healthy seas
  • End captivity
  • Fundraising
  • Green Whale
  • Kids blogs
  • Prevent deaths in nets
  • Scottish Dolphin Centre
  • Stop whaling
Dolphin in Brazil helping with fishing illustration

Dolphins and fishermen working together

Kidzone - quick links Fun Facts Curious kids Blogs Fantastic fundraisers Gallery Splish and Splash...
Gray whale (eschrichtius robustus) Gray whale in Ojo de liebre lagoon Baja California.

Why we’re walking for whales to save the world

We've got enormous ambitions when it comes to fighting climate breakdown, and so two members...
Dolphins with keepers in the new Windsor Safari Park. Image: PA Images/Alamy Stock Photo

Three decades on from UK’s last dolphin show, what needs to change?

The UK hasn't had captive whales and dolphins on display for 30 years, but it's...
Fishers' involvement is crucial. Image: WDC/JTF

When porpoises and people overlap

We're funding a project in Hong Kong that's working with fishing communities to help save...
Whale evolution cover

How did whales end up living in the ocean?

Kidzone - quick links Fun Facts Curious kids Blogs Fantastic fundraisers Gallery Splish and Splash...
Fishers chatting

Scottish fishers working with us to reduce risks to whales

Small changes to fishing gear could make a big difference to whales around Scotland, and...

Mindful conservation – why we need a new respect for nature

'We should look at whales and dolphins as the indigenous people of the seas -...
tins of whale meat

How Japan’s whaling industry is trying to convince people to eat whales

Japan's hunters kill hundreds of whales every year despite the fact that hardly anyone in...

Scrap dolphins’ environmental message

About 18 months ago, we were approached by the coordinator of the Chippenham Children and Young People’s Parliament to ask if we might find a way of working together on a Chippenham-wide project. She had been inspired to make contact after her daughter’s school had received a visit from one of WDC’s volunteer speakers and couldn’t stop talking about it when she got home that afternoon.

The Parliament, which involves 21 schools representing 8000 children in the local area, has a number of priority issues that it works on, one of those being the environment. It made perfect sense for the two groups to work together with the topic of litter and how it makes its way into the marine environment being agreed upon as something relevant to both.

With the help of funding from Chippenham Borough Lands we set about giving a series of interactive assemblies and workshops at the schools. Along with artist Sonia Shomalzedeh (who gave her time for free) and volunteer Bernard Purrier, we worked with the schools to create large dolphin sculptures made from scrap material, and a group of children from the Parliament wrote articles for various magazine and websites to help raise awareness of the project. 

This week, the resulting pieces of artwork have gone on display in the town’s medieval Yelde Hall. The hall is open to the public from 10:30-3:30 Monday to Saturday, and the dolphins should be available to see until at least Monday 26th January.

Some of the children’s messaging and why they were inspired to get involved is also there for the public to see.  Messages such as:

‘Littering rivers and oceans is as bad as littering someone’s home…it can be fatal for some speices of sea life’ – Callum and Joel, Frogwell School

‘We chose to do this because we were concerned about the litter being thrown in the river and going out to sea. This can harm animals as they eat it’ – Jessica, Lacock Primary

‘Stop litter, save oceans’ – Megan, Redland Primary

‘We decorated dolphins using litter and created creatures on the dolphin to show that littering is bad and it can kill all of the creatures on land and in the ocean’ – Liam and Katie, Kington St Michael CE Primary

We know that children can influence adult behaviour, and that they will make a difference to the future of the planet and its oceans. The pupils of Chippenham want people to know that you don’t have to live by the sea to make that difference, and I think their enthusiasm, knowledge and creativity will win people over!

About George Berry

George is a member of WDC's Communications team and website coordinator.