Bringing the Seashore to Cardiff

Cardiff Bay Beach/Traeth Bae Caerdydd wasn’t the only taste of the sea for people visiting Cardiff yesterday. Museum Scientists brought the seashore to museum visitors in one of our Natural Science family workshops. These drop-in sessions aim to give visitors a taste of the wildlife that you can find on your doorstep, in woodland, on meadows…or in this case on the seashore.

More than 140 visitors looked down microscopes at seaweed, found out where on the shore different animals like to live, and sorted through many kinds of molluscs (such as top shells, periwinkles, slipper limpets, whelks, limpets, mussels), sea worms, starfish and sea urchins from the museum’s collections. Few people could resist popping the ‘bubble-wrap seaweed’ (Bladder Wrack) or counting the air bladders on the Egg Wrack to see how old it was. They found out which seaweed is used to make laverbread and which is used in their ice-cream!

With over 870 miles of stunning coastline, Wales is a great place to explore the seashore. We hope that some of our visitors can get outside and discover some of the animals and plants for themselves.