Global POP

A global network of schools investigating environmental pollutants in fish from the Arctic and worldwide

Summary

One of the most important challenges in modern society is to inspire and recruit young scientists to study natural sciences at university level. There are, however, strong indications that practical involvements and hands-on experiences are important factors to catch students’ interest in natural sciences and mathematics. Such experiences will hopefully motivate them to pursue higher learning and continue in those disciplines as they make career choices.

One issue of importance today is to increase knowledge and consciousness about environmental issues, especially among teenagers. By allowing youths to participate with practical doing in a scientific project dealing with worldwide environmental spread of a major pollutant we hope to create both engagement and enthusiasm. Several hundreds of schools from the Arctic and world-wide will be invited to participate in a global project that aim to collect data on the levels of dioxin and dioxin-like contaminants in locally caught fish used for human consumption. Pollutants are found in variable levels in fish, depending on the lipid content and age of the fish. Independent of this most national authorities encourage people to eat more traditional food and fish in particular, both due to the total benefits and positive health effects of vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids but also because people consume little fish today. However, it is important to continue monitoring the levels of toxic chemicals in fish in order to give well-balanced recommendations for consumption, and this global dataset will contribute significantly in this matter.

The schools will take part in an international project where they get insight into correct scientific sampling of fish, sample preparation, collecting important metadata and how to ship samples to the research institute for analysis. Some schools can also go a step further and prepare the samples for analysis. The research institute will utilise a “state of the art” bioassay method on the fish samples to detect a specific toxic effect with concomitant concentrations of dioxins and dioxin-like compounds. The quality assured results will be provided to the schools and the students will evaluate the results specifically on the levels of toxic chemicals in fish, on how their local levels compare to other regions in the world, such as the Arctic and the Antarctic. The students should also be able to discuss and evaluate sources and transport of toxic chemicals, specifically dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and the potential health implications given the tolerable intake values of dioxins and dioxin-like compounds in fish muscle set by the European commission, World Health Organisation (WHO) and national authorities.