Celebrating Ocean and Earth Day at the National Oceanography
Centre
23rd March 2012
It is Saturday 17th March 2012 at 10:30am and a lively,
colourful crowd is standing outside the doors of the National
Oceanography Centre (NOC), in the docks of Southampton.
It is the Ocean and Earth Day and as part of this year’s
celebration of National Science and Engineering Week, NOC opens its
doors to show the public the amazing range, variety and excellence
of the work at NOC.
More than 3100 visitors (a record breaker) were treated to an
exciting and engaging series of around 63 displays and
presentations focused specifically on children, with the aim of
inspiring future ocean and earth scientists and engineers.
The Sea Surface Ocean
Acidification consortium participated in the event with a
video and poster display and information material about our
research work and the impacts of ocean acidification on marine life
and ecosystem processes.
More than 300 children attended our stand and had fun
experimenting with stones and acids. Our scientists and volunteers
demonstrated the chemical process of acidification and shared their
passion about science as well as their concerns about the impacts
of ocean acidification to marine life with both children and
parents.
Ting Ting Shi, a participant of the consortium and an Ocean and
Earth day volunteer, said:
Ocean and Earth Day is a great opportunity to publicise our
school to the public in particularly the children and the youth and
their families. It is also a good chance for them to learn some
knowledge about the ocean and some contemporary environmental
problems. Our ocean acidification project received broad attention
on that day. Many children showed their great interests to the
small acidification experiment and learned the simple basis. The
parents concerned about the problems of CO2 emissions
and ocean acidification and taught their children to save energy
and to use public transportations, in order to help reduce
CO2 emissions and protect the environment. I really
enjoyed the interaction with the children and the parents.
And, Dr Toby Tyrrell, Principal Investigator of the Sea Surface
OA Consortium, added:
It was a pleasure to see so many visitors coming to find out
about ocean acidification and trying our simple experiment. In
particular the children enjoyed wearing the lab gloves and goggles
and looking like budding scientists! It was enjoyable communicating
the purpose of what we do and explaining what the point of it all
is.
