AKMA Project
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UiT University Tromsø, Norway
Exploring Extreme Environment with a focus on science and education
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Akma OceanSenses Research Expedition in the Arctic Ocean
Development for interdisciplinary collaboration to bring AKMA science into the classroom. We aimed to develop different lesson plans to encourage discussion on the ocean and climate change among school pupils and learners of any age. We wanted to spread awareness about the Arctic environment and the potential impact of climate change on the biological communities that live there.
Scientists and educators from very different background have been working together and developed learning tools to experience the ocean using all our senses (touch, sight, smell, hearing and taste). The diversity within and between these smaller working groups is reflected in the variety of the resulting lesson plans which have been compiled into the Ocean Senses Book.
My goal was to learn from ocean scientists, and I was especially interested in marine sediments and the life forms living within them. I collected sediments of different colors, which reflect variations in oxygen levels, as well as the locations and depths from which they come from. Some of the sediment samples I collected are more than 1,000 years old!
Another particularly interesting aspect for me was the living foraminifera found in the sediment. These are tiny, single-celled organisms that live in all of the world’s oceans. They are the most abundant single-celled organisms in the marine environment and, despite their small size, they are absolutely essential for understanding the evolution of life and ecosystems on Earth. They react very sensitively to physical and chemical environmental changes and are therefore ideal indicators for scientists seeking to reconstruct Earth’s climate history.
I started making watercolours and pastel sticks from the differently coloured sediments I collected (handbook colours), The process was technically a bit different from working with earth clays. The pastel sticks in particular turned out very hard, so I had to wash out all the salt water out of the sediment in order to prepare softer pastel sticks.
