Marine knowledge times two

What do seagrass meadows look like underwater and why are they so important? What ecosystems are there in the deep sea? What is the environmental status of the North and Baltic Seas? And how can the problem of munitions waste in the sea be solved? The answers to questions like these and much more knowledge from German marine research can now be discovered in the two transfer portals ‘Interactive World Ocean’ and ‘Ocean Online’ of the German Marine Research Alliance (DAM). The digital knowledge offerings provide demand-orientated, well-founded and at the same time entertaining insights from marine research and bundle research findings from DAM member institutions. They are intended to help create and deepen awareness of the importance of the sea as the basis for our life on earth.

The two portals are customised to the needs of different target groups: The digital information portal ‘Ocean Online’ bundles comprehensible expertise from all areas of marine science at www.meere-online.de and is aimed at decision-makers from politics, business and civil society as well as all other interested parties. As a touchscreen-based ocean map for schools, educational institutions and exhibitions, the ‘Interactive World Ocean’ enables exciting virtual diving tours through the oceans. An online version of the map is available at www.weltozean.de.

‘The sea is vital to our survival. Our goal must therefore be to deal with coasts, seas and oceans in a more sustainable way. Knowledge from research is the key to this,’ explains Dr Joachim Harms, CEO of the DAM. ‘With its current 25 member institutions, the DAM brings together a broad spectrum of scientific research – from marine and coastal to polar research. The ‘Interactive World Ocean’ and the ‘Ocean Online’ information portal now make the combined expertise of German marine research available in a low-threshold and generally understandable way as a basis for political and social decisions.’

Contributing to a more sustainable use of the sea: an overview of the transfer portals

The transfer of scientific findings to politics, business and society is a core strategic element and a cross-cutting task of the DAM. The aim is to strengthen the sustainable management of coasts, seas and oceans on the basis of scientific findings. The two new DAM transfer portals contribute to this goal and complement each other in their focus and target group approach:

• Ocean Online
  The digital information portal ‘Ocean Online’ provides scientific information for anyone interested in coasts, seas and oceans: Knowledge for sustainable action to better protect the seas and make their use by humans more sustainable. The web portal networks and bundles the expertise of German marine research and offers comprehensible specialist knowledge as a basis for decision-making for politics, administration, business and civil society. In cooperation with the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), the web portal offers an AI-supported semantic search function. In co-operation with Informationsdienst Wissenschaft (idw), reports from marine research are made available in a thematically searchable format.
• Interactive World Ocean
  As a touchscreen-based ocean map for use in schools, educational institutions and exhibitions, the interactive world ocean invites visitors to discover the diversity of coasts, seas and oceans, to immerse themselves in different regions of the world and to understand the connections between them. The interactive map is designed for tablets and smartboards as well as large-format touch tables. Users can navigate easily and intuitively by touch. Immersion points open up a view of the underwater world – from river and coastal systems to the open ocean and the deep sea, from the tropics to the polar regions. The world ocean is explored using research videos, image galleries, satellite images and data visualisations, which are linked to the digital information portal ‘Seas Online’ if further specialist knowledge is required. In addition, various accompanying materials for use with the interactive world ocean are being developed together with experts in education and exhibition didactics.
  The interactive world ocean is being realised by the DAM in cooperation with the German Aerospace Centre (DLR).

The ‘Interactive World Ocean’ and ‘Ocean Online’ are part of the DAM’s transfer activities, which are funded by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) and the northern German states of Bremen, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein. Both portals are official contributions to the UN Ocean Decade and the EU’s Restore our Ocean and Waters mission. In the DAM, the two digital transfer offerings are complemented by dialogue formats for politics, stakeholders and society as well as other transfer and science communication measures.