Floating Summer School

“During our expedition, we will train young investigators hailing from 14 different countries to become experts on marine sustainability research,” says expedition leader Prof Karen Wiltshire, a biologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) facilities on Sylt. Human wellbeing, sustainable development, and economic growth all depend on a healthy ocean. “The more scientific experts there are around the world, the better we’ll come to understand our ocean, which will ultimately allow us to use it more sustainably and preserve it,” Wiltshire explains. She will hold the reins for the fourth instalment of the Floating Summer School: in 2015 and 2016, the training was also offered during the Polarstern’s north-to-south transit (North South Atlantic Training Transect (NoSoAT)), while in 2019 it took place during the south-to-north transit from Port Stanley (Falkland Islands) to Bremerhaven (South North Atlantic Training Transect (SoNoAT)).

The successful training programmes conducted in past years have shown that data collection and training for young investigators make for a winning combination. The young investigators use the measurements taken from various regions of the Atlantic along a north-to-south transect as part of their training. In this regard, they are supervised by an international team including experts from e.g. the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, the National University of Ireland in Galway, and the University of East Anglia (UK) – another indicator that global problems can only be overcome by working together. Once on board the Polarstern, working in small groups, the young investigators will spend several days each working on various topics concerning the climate system, oceanography, the atmosphere, microorganisms and bathymetry, as well as data processing. When combined with satellite-based observation, the data gathered on board will allow them to view their findings in a global context.

In addition, their training will focus on science communication. Accordingly, the participating young researchers will regularly report on the expedition via social media. Schoolchildren from Spain, Ireland, and Germany’s Helgoland have contributed small monitoring boats, which will be deployed in the Atlantic from on board the Polarstern. These so called mini-boats will subsequently transmit temperature data directly via satellite to the non-profit organisation Educational Passages, partner of the Partnership for Observation of the Global Ocean (POGO), organisation leading the initiative. Participating schoolchildren will have front-row seats for the expedition: video livestreams to activities on board are planned, while a website will offer them data from “their” boat and provide the basis for further discussion of related topics in the classroom.

After leaving port with the afternoon high tide on 30 August, the Polarstern will first set course for Rotterdam, where she will bunker for fuel. Roughly a month later, in late September, the ship is expected to reach Cape Town, where after a brief call to port she’ll continue south: from early October to mid-December, a two-stage expedition will investigate biogeochemical material flows near Southern Georgia. Shortly before Christmas, the Polarstern will embark on an eleven-week cruise with a geoscientific focus in the Bellingshausen Sea. There will be another summer school during the ship’s return transit before she tentatively returns to her home port of Bremerhaven in April 2023.

Further information and links:

UN Ocean Decade: https://www.oceandecade.org 
The participating young investigators will receive financial support from scholarships jointly offered by the Nippon Foundation (https://www.nippon-foundation.or.jp/en/) and the Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans (POGO: https://pogo-ocean.org/). You can find more information on the programme here: http://www.oceantrainingpartnership.org/NoSoAT2022 
You can track the mini-boats in real-time here: https://educationalpassages.org/events/pogo/
The expedition is part of the All-Atlantic Ocean Research Alliance: https://allatlanticocean.org/main 
You can follow the expedition on twitter: https://twitter.com/AWI_Media
or of course using the Polarstern App: https://follow-polarstern.awi.de/