IMTA exhibit | Photo: Susanne Eickhoff, ZMT

13/02/2020 | A comic about bio-economy, recycling management with mushrooms and science journalism workshops for schoolchildren: with ideas like these, young scientists from all over Germany want to stimulate a social dialogue about sustainable management.

The Science Year 2020 is dedicated to the bio-economy, i.e. an ecologically, economically and socially sustainable form of economy. As part of the Science Year, the university competition (Hochschulwettbewerb) is taking place, which calls on young scientists and their teams to use their competition entries to make their research understandable in an interactive way.

"Show your research" is the motto of the initiative that Science in Dialogue (WiD) calls for every year and which is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. This year, a jury awarded 15 teams 10,000 euros each for their communication concepts, including one from the ZMT.

How can a sustainable recycling economy be created under water? This is what the ZMT project is all about. A classic showcase with a tropical coastal scene will be equipped with digital components: visitors can use a touchpad to display further information on the respective stations as well as graphics and videos.

Aquaculture is the fastest growing food sector and is becoming indispensable for feeding the world. The exhibit aims to introduce a broad audience to the topic of aquaculture, its problems and the promising approach of Integrated Multitrophic Aquaculture (IMTA). IMTA is a concept for closed-loop management in which nutrients are recycled and reused within natural food webs. The ZMT is investigating which organisms can best be integrated into IMTAs and how this approach can improve food security and livelihoods in coastal regions.

The exhibit will address these topics in a generally understandable way, and visitors can control the depth of information themselves. After completion, it will be presented to a broad public at exhibitions and trade fairs and introduced in workshops for schoolchildren.

The WG Experimental Aquaculture and the public relations group of the ZMT are pleased to receive funding for their cooperative project.