They are competition winners in the EU Horizon 2020 funded Edu-Arctic project on promoting STEM education in Europe, a project the Arctic Portal is a partner in. The competition had more than 40 school teams from around Europe participating and 6 winners were found. Three of the winners along with the their teachers came to Iceland, two students from Poland and one from Italy.
They arrived in Iceland on August 8 and will be staying until August 17. The Arctic Portal team has been organizing their visit and helping them experience Iceland, its nature, science and people, to the fullest. So far they have seen the capital Reykjavík where among other things they visited the National Museum, Harpa Conference Centre and the City Hall. They drove to the national park Þingvellir where they experienced its surrounding and saw the very visible fault line.
From Þingvellir they drove to the glacier Langjökull and onwards to Akureyri, stopping at various scenic places along the way. They have been to the magnificent lake Mývatn and visited the visitor center of Landsvirkjun´s Krafla power station where they learned about harvesting the thermal energy from the Earth´s core through boreholes. After learning about the geothermic powers they went to see the Europes most powerfull waterfall, Dettifoss followed by swimming and relaxing in the Mývatn Nature Baths. To get the real feeling of Icelandic fishing towns they were taken to Siglufjörður, Ólafsfjörður, Dalvík and Hjalteyri where they tasted fermented shark among other things and got to learn about the underwater phenomenas in the Arctic Eyjafjörður at the Strýtan Dive Centre. After having learned about the fishing culture they went whalewatching where they saw the great humpback whale up close in action. The group was very lucky to be allowed to stay in the guesthouse at the Aurora Observatory of Kárhóll www.karholl.is becoming the first international young scientists to enjoy the facilities there.
