The first Citizen Science Event of the BLUETOOLS project took place on Saturday 25th April 2025 in Trondheim, Norway. Our project partner SINTEF organised a dedicated stand at the “Barnas Stora Fjæredag” translated “A day at the beach for kids and families”. Around 1,500 people attended this open event at the coast.
During this event, colleagues from SINTEF had the chance to inform visitors what they are doing in terms of marine microbiome research in the BLUETOOLS project. They organised special activities for citizen participation in research activities by having kids and their parents helping SINTEF partners to collect samples from the beach zone to be analysed for presence of enzymes annotated to be pollutant (PAH) degrading enzymes. People collected samples of marine biodiversity and brought it back for further analysis.
In addition to sample collection, colleagues from SINTEF had on the site DNA sequence analysis to evaluate the presence of pollutant (PAH) degrading enzymes in samples from the beach.
The task for the citizens in this activity was to help and facilitate in the findings of pollutant degrading microbes from the coast in Norway.
