Seaweed forests are crucial habitats, but due to ocean warming and increasing coastal development, are in a global state of decline. On the Sunshine Coast, underwater seaweed forests disappeared in the 1970s due to urbanisation. Seaweed restoration can be highly successful, facilitating a return of ecosystem services and biodiversity. However, because of challenging environments and the labour-intensive work required, underwater restoration is presently limited in scale. One option for scaling-up marine restoration is to power projects with citizen scientists. Restoration activities can thereby provide co-benefits for local communities by providing opportunities to connect with nature and actively engage in its care. Targeting youth (18–25-year-olds), we assessed whether certain social media platforms (Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok) or types of posts (positive or negative posts about seaweed, people or the environment) would lead to higher recruitment. At a ‘restoration event’ on the Sunshine Coast, citizen scientists helped restore patches of fucoid forests, and we further evaluated how participation influenced their understanding of and attitudes towards seaweeds and local marine environments. Preliminary data from these experiments, along with the environmental outcomes of underwater fucoid forest restoration on the Sunshine Coast, will be presented.