Future Education – Sharing Science

This great universal scholar and first networker in science stressed that everything is interconnected.

In 2019 we celebrate Humboldt's 250th birthday and ask ourselves: How can we feel nature in our digitized world today? How can we create networks that, above all, make young people in the permanent data stream understand the big picture and convey more than textbook knowledge?

Develop thinking through exchange with the scientists

It is the 37th day at sea. Since the beginning of our trip, students from the district school Wilhelmsburg accompany our expedition from their classroom. Today, we want to switch, from "Polarstern" to their school. In Wilhelmsburg, the world’s largest river island after Manhattan, the children live with and by the water. In subject-specific classes, with topics defined by the curriculum, the topics are delivered by the teachers such that they always have a maritime reference and incorporate the real experiences of the pupils.

For example, the grade 3 spelling lessons currently do not contain any vocabulary words on the board, but instead, in the most beautiful chalk writing: "The icebreaker “Polarstern” goes on an expedition to Antarctica." What the research icebreaker does there, the children followed together with their teacher Maike Eggerstedt every day. The topics are developed in constant exchange with the scientists onboard.

A look into the future

We are amazed when the students surprise us with questions that go beyond our current field of research. They want to know what the future of marine research looks like, if there are any ideas on how to better study the ocean floor. Together with the students in Wilhelmsburg, our chief scientist Gerhard Bohrmann designs a future scenario in which many permanently anchored observation station are installed on the seabed, collecting data around the clock at many points in the ocean. "With a research vessel, we can only collect data at one point in the ocean for a short time. We have to go there directly, and then the weather has to cooperate as well, so that we can deploy our measuring instruments. If you want to make reliable predictions about changes in the ocean, then we need these permanent stations on the seabed, which are connected to our land-based computers and provide us with long-term data", explains the marine geologist, one of the world's most renowned gas hydrate researchers.

On the other side of the ocean, in Wilhelmsburg, it is as quiet as a mouse. The children are listening, spellbound. And since we know how much the primary school students like to paint, we would not be surprised if they sent pictures of futuristic-looking observatories to "Polarstern" in the next few days. We are curious. Jules Verne comes to mind. He wrote: "Everything a human being can imagine today will be realized by other people." Yes, maybe the future can happen right now, here in the stormy polar sea - our ship, science, ourselves, networked with children, only a few of them are given a chance, because they come from Wilhelmsburg.

Our telepresence is coming to an end. Medina and Furkan perfectly thank the captain and the chief scientist on behalf of their school. Then a storm of enthusiasm breaks out in the auditorium. The representatives from all classes, a total of about 80 children, clap and say goodbye, a loud, affectionate farewell "Tschüüüüüüss". It sounds happy. We appreciate this school lesson, which could create a precedent. The technology is there, we just have to use it. Most of all, we have to keep listening and trusting young people, now and into the future.