The winners of
the Stockholm Junior Water Prize Special Prize in the Young Scientists competition will be coached by DTU researchers.
Three students from Egaa Gymnasium (high school), Tobias Washeim, Kristian Katholm Nielsen, and Sebastian Lykke Dalsgaard, have just won a special prize in the Young Scientists competition. In the coming months, they will be coached by DTU researchers before representing Denmark in the Stockholm Junior Water Prize—a large international competition for water technology and sustainability.
Their winning project deals with the identification of microplastics in water.
The essence of the project is that in order to act on the problem, you have to be able to measure it. Their project explores an innovative way of concentrating and measuring microplastics in water. Consequently, they have gained access to the Stockholm Junior Water Prize competition in August, when they will compete against high school students from all over the world.
“The academic level at the Stockholm Junior Water Prize is very high, so we want to help the Danish participants by equipping them with specialist knowledge. They’ll be in tough competition against participants from 30 other countries, each bringing their own water-related project which must benefit the environment and have a societal, technological, or scientific impact in order to qualify,” says Professor Hans-Jørgen Albrechtsen from DTU Environment.
DTU’s participation in the competition is part of a new collaboration between DTU Environment and The House of Natural Sciences, which has just launched. The project will ensure increased awareness among high school students of one of the major challenges the world is facing, namely how to handle our water resources.
Teaching materials about water and sustainability
The DTU Environment scientists who will support and coach the Danish winners of the Young Scientists Special Prize as part of the project are some of Denmark’s leading researchers within water technology. Hans-Jørgen Albrechtsen, Berit Godskesen, and Poul Løgstrup Bjerg are responsible for the new project’s academic content.
“The Stockholm Junior Water Prize is a kind of youth Nobel Prize for water, which Denmark has not previously participated in. We want to change that. We’re one of the leading countries in the world within water knowledge and innovation and should thus be represented at such an occasion,” says professor Poul Løgstrup Bjerg, DTU Environment.
However, the new collaboration between DTU Environment and The House of Natural Sciences has a much broader perspective than just the competition. The goal is to increase the knowledge of young Danish people regarding water technologies and sustainability by putting the theme on the agenda in high school. This will be done firstly through the preparation of new teaching materials and courses in how to use the material for high school teachers. Furthermore, the project will also include collaboration between schools and water-related businesses, organized by Tektanken.
The project launched recently and will last three years. The project has received EUR 470.000 in funding from The Poul Due Jensen Foundation, created by the founder of Grundfos.