We have started our European harbour tour together with students from Öckerö Sailing Upper Secondary School and their 50-meter-long three-mast barque T/S Gunilla to demonstrate marine biodiversity in different countries.
The collaboration between Virtue and Öckerö Sailing Upper Secondary School was initiated earlier this year. It is a joint effort to spread knowledge of marine biodiversity using CDs mounted on plastic racks. The intention is to make students from different countries compare and discuss their results and experiences.
Over 2 months ago, we fastened specially designed CDs made of polycarbonate on the school ship T/S Gunilla, which were removed yesterday by a diver from the Aquarium in Barcelona (see our film: http://youtu.be/IQRus-ABmrs). Today, we had an event in Barcelona at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Campus Universitari Mar. The Swedish students from T/S Gunilla and the Spanish students from a local school compared marine growth on CDs from Spain, Sweden and T/S Gunilla. The students used stereo microscopes and USB-microscopes connected to iPads to see what was growing on the CD:s. There was also a video conference with a Swedish school and a food tasting event sponsored by the Sea for Society, an EU-funded project. To finish off the day, we organised a workshop with teachers and marine educators from Spain, Sweden and also over video link Adam Frederick, one of the founders of Virtue in the 1990’s, from Maryland, USA to discuss Virtue’s future in Barcelona.
Next week, we will be in Palma de Mallorca.
This collaboration was funded by the Hasselblad Foundation.