"Polarstern" live in the classroom. "Nature has to be felt", wrote Alexander von Humboldt to his friend Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. His motto: Leave the laboratory and the office, and dive deep into the world to grasp the "web of life".
Portrait of Alexander von Humboldt (1806) by Friedrich Georg WeitschAlte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
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?
At Sea with RV "Polarstern" (2019/2019)Federal Ministry of Education and Research
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.
Birthday Greetings for the Captain (2019/2019)Federal Ministry of Education and Research
The class 3a students even send our captain a birthday salute at sea.
Private Moment: Kapitän Moritz Langhinrichs during the Polarstern-Expedition PS119 (2019/2019)Federal Ministry of Education and Research
In Wilhelmsburg, the school bell has just rung for a big break. Half an hour to the live circuit. On board we use the telepresence, which was set up, so that scientists on shore can be present live on every dive and contribute their expert knowledge in seabed research. This telepresence was used successfully for the first time on our expedition. Scientists from all over the world join in. A new network of knowledge. A network that is also able to show new ways for education. And the best outcome, make the next generation directly participate in current research, research that cannot be found in any textbook yet written. Why not connect directly to a lab more often?
The seabed, far and yet so close
While the students are gathering in their assembly hall, we are sitting in the winch control station of our ship. During this expedition, there are computers and screens set up, where we follow the dives on board and communicate with the pilots in the control container. The computers and the sound system for the telepresence are installed here, too. ROV team leader Volker Ratmeyer checks the connection to Hamburg. All right. Ready to go.
14,000 kilometers as the crow flies from "Polarstern", the pupils in Wilhelmsburg see the pictures that the diving robot "MARUM-Quest" sends back from the deep sea. Giant chimneys, billowing black smoke rising from the brown-greenish ocean floor. Here and there, crabs sit on the bizarre-looking rock structures, a fluffy anemone can be seen, and now and again delicate spider crabs.
School (2019/2019)Federal Ministry of Education and Research
Students ask - "Polarstern" answers
There are many questions. Medina and Furkan from class 11a moderate the live circuit. Since the students have been studying our topics for weeks, they are well prepared. Captain Moritz Langhinrich and chief scientist Gerhard Bohrmann are astonished by the depth of the questions and sometimes have to think for a moment before answering. The fact that there is no sunlight in the deep sea and that the inhabitants of the hot vents and cold seeps draw their life energy from chemical substances, already seems to be general knowledge at the school, and words like "chemosynthesis" or "hydrothermal field" are no longer foreign words for many of the students. But how does the Yeti crab eat the bacteria that have nested in the bristles on their bodies? The students want to know the details.
Deploying the dive robot "Marum-Quest" (2019/2019)Federal Ministry of Education and Research
Other students are more interested in the technology of our Remotely Operated Vehicle, and ask how the device can withstand the high pressure underwater. A good question, which not everyone would come to immediately. Life on board is also an issue, and students ask how we handle problems on the ship. The ship as a microcosm seems to parallel the microcosm experience of school as a world of thought. The district school Wilhelmsburg, with over 1,000 students, is what is called a "hotspot school". 80 percent of the students have a migration background, 70 percent come from socially disadvantaged families.
Live-Conference (2019/2019)Federal Ministry of Education and Research
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.
Baron Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) (1859) by Julius SchraderThe Metropolitan Museum of Art
PHOTOGRAPHY: Holger von Neuhoff
TEXT: Stephanie von Neuhoff
