Environmental education for conservation

To promote the conservation of eagle rays along northern Chile, it is essential to engage local communities — especially young people — in their protection. With this in mind, we aimed to share the activities and results of our study with children at local schools in Antofagasta, fostering conservation awareness from an early age.

With the support of the University of Antofagasta’s Science and Technology Transfer Department, we reached out to schools in the area. The main challenge was: how do we get children excited about marine science and eagle ray research?

Our solution was to create a life-sized model of a Chilean eagle ray and bring it to the talks, along with the drone and the measuring stick we use to estimate the size of individuals.

Measuring an eagle ray while scuba diving in the green waters of Mejillones Bay. Photo © Enrique Bejarano

The children were thrilled with the presentations and showed great interest in learning how they could help protect eagle rays. Encouraged by their enthusiasm, we decided to participate in the Month of the Sea activities and the International Book Festival in Antofagasta.

Overall, these outreach activities allowed us to share our study’s findings with the broader community, demonstrating how drones can be used to assess the presence, density, and seasonality of eagle rays. We were pleased to discover that more and more people are becoming interested in eagle rays—and even curious about capturing aerial images of them!

Educational talk for children at a local school in Antofagasta. Photo © Sebastián Gallardo