Now children, young people and their families can learn more about the water quality and plant and animal life in our approx. 200,000 Danish lakes and ponds. At the same time, researchers are assisted in obtaining even more knowledge about the lakes.
This is done through the development of a number of activitites in collaboration with nature schools, libraries, after-school care facilities, voluntary associations, citizens and researchers.
Through the activities in the project, all children and young people can become junior freshwater biologists and contribute with data and new knowledge about our lakes. This is also referred to as citizen science or citizen-involving research. The target group of the project is school-age children, young people and their families.
The project contains 4 main activities:
- Lake suitcases: Borrow a box of equipment inclusive guides and explore the local lake.
- Lake camps: A camp where children and young people spend time together for 2-3 days doing lake activities.
- Book a presentation: We offer on-site presentations/activities for groups of at least 25 people
- Find a lake and help the researchers by taking water samples so that we can gain even more information about lakes in Denmark. Find a lake started with success in 2020 and will run early until 2024.
The project runs from 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2025 and is funded by the Villum Foundation. See more about the project participants under the project partners.
The project ‘Lakes in spare Time’ builds on all the positive experiences and input from citizens and partners in the 2020 version of ‘Find a Lake’, where 427 water samples were collected by children, young people and citizens on Funen and combined with dissemination, teaching and preparation of teaching materials. We have evaluated and further developed all the great things from ‘Find a Lake’ and are now focusing on children and young people’s spare time. Therefore, the partners in the ‘Lakes in spare Time’ project include after-school care facilities, libraries, rangers, nature centres/nature schools, voluntary associations and citizens.
‘Went registering small ponds near Svendborg this weekend with my kids. It was a great opportunity to spend a few active hours in nature, and we got to talk about and see a lot of different aquatic environment along the way. So thank you for that!’
Feedback from a family who participated in ‘Find a Lake’ in 2020
The basic idea is to increase children’s and young people’s interest in and knowledge about lakes and ponds. In addition, SDU would like to create a number of leisure activities for children and young people with lakes and ponds as the overall theme and finally, in collaboration with the participating children and young people, collect valuable data – partly about lakes and ponds, but also about learning and motivation among children and young people. It’s called Citizen Science – where children, young people and their families are directly involved in research.