Copenhagen invaded by research fleet
As part of this summer’s science festival ’Science in the City’, a fleet of research ships will be docking in Copenhagen. The public is invited on board to learn about the ins and outs of marine research.
This summer’s large science festival ’Science in the City’ will take place between 21 and 26 June in Copenhagen.
As part of the festival, a fleet of research vessels will be docking in the Danish capital, where the crew and scientists will give the public a unique opportunity to come on board and find out more about the scientific work carried out at sea.
The ships, from Denmark, Germany, Holland and Sweden, represent a wide range of new and old research vessels. They vary in size, too, from the small Aurora from Aarhus University to Denmark’s largest research vessel, Dana, from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and the Swedish ice-breaker, Oden, which spans an impressive 108 metres in length.
For Science in the City, the ships will feature a variety of events where the public will get the opportunity to see, touch and hear about the animals that the ship crews pull out of the sea on their expeditions.
”We hope people will find it interesting to board the ships and hear about what the researchers do,” says Karin Stubgaard, of DTU Aqua, the Danish National Institute of Aquatic Resources. She is the project manager for the event on the research vessel Dana.
Insight into marine research
The two Danish ships, Dana and Aurora, will be joined by the German ship Clupea, the Dutch Tridens and the Swedish ice-breaker Oden.
Visitors on board Dana will get the chance to experience highlights from the recent expedition to the Sargasso Sea in the Bermuda Triangle and learn about scientists’ attempts to solve the mystery of the recent decline in the eel population.
The public will also get the chance to hear about the ship’s role in the identification of fish stocks, which forms the basis of the allocation of fishing quotas.
”Visitors will get to see the laboratories, the steering bridge and some of the equipment used in marine research, and researchers and crew members will be at hand to answer questions about everything from echo sounders to the purpose of collecting eel larvae in the Sargasso Sea,” says Stubgaard.
Onboard gastronomic playroom
Dana will also feature food entertainment courtesy of Gastronomisk Legestue (Gastronomic Playroom) – an experimental kitchen at the Department of Food Science at the University of Copenhagen – which will present seafood preparation in a fun and scientific way.
“The idea is to use raw materials from Danish waters and prepare them with some unusual culinary techniques. In this way, we combine the research that is carried out on the ships with the research we do here at the Department of Food Science,” says Associate Professor Karsten Olsen, who coordinates the Gastronomic Playroom event, adding that food samples will be available to visitors.
Dana will be docked at Amaliekajen in Copenhagen 21-23 June. See the Factbox for visiting dates for the other research vessels.
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Read the Danish version of this article at videnskab.dk
