On the 15th of October, SCOPE – the 1st Student-led Conference on Polar Environment took place for the very first time at the University Centre in Svalbard.
SCOPE conference starting off (picture: Christina Hess)
In total 65 persons participated in the physical event and 87 persons watched the online stream. Among the participants were 6 students from the local Folkehøgskole. In total there were 20 presentations from Bachelor, Master and PhD students covering all spheres of Svalbard. The conference morning started with an opening by the hosts Christina Hess and Cecilie Thaarup. The first presentation took the participants up to space, where they learned about “High density volumes’ transit over the Magnetic Polar Cap”. From space they sank to the level of the troposphere again and got to know “What’s up with the weather forecast in Svalbard”.
Richard Hann, a researcher from NTNU gave a very interesting keynote on “How to publish a paper” in which he explained the important steps from writing a paper, finding the right journal to publish and finally present it.
Keynote speaker Richard Hann (picture: Christina Hess)
The next presentations focused on local Geology, followed by an “Introduction to APECS” from Maaike Weerdesteijn, the social media coordinator of APECS Norway. During the Biology presentations, the participants could learn about the diet of reindeers and the insulation capacities of mosses as well as the microbial communities in the local river and fjord systems. The day ended with happy participants having a small gathering around the fireplace, enjoying some snacks and cold beverages.
SCOPE participants gathering around the fireplace (picture: Cecilie Thaarup)
Happy, grateful, and sparked. These are the three adjectives that explain best how the organisation team feels after SCOPE. We are happy that it went so well, and all the long hours of preparation were worth it, seeing this amazing conference. We are so grateful for all the contributions, outstanding presentations and above all, the help and positive feedback our team received from so many people. Encouraged by this, we will use our experience from the past months and the event itself to prepare for passing on SCOPE as a concept to the next group of students managing this event.
SCOPE hosts: Cecilie Thaarup (left) and Christina Hess (right) (picture Maaike Weerdesteijn)
We want to say thank you to all people who supported the SCOPE team during the last year and bioCEED – Centre for Excellence in Biology Education that funded the conference, as well as APECS Norway that sponsored the award for the best presentation.