Jens Bjelvenmark - Marine biologist and teacher at Gullmarsgymnasiet
Friday April 27th, 18:00-19:00
Interview by: Erik Junkers, Fanny Hahne
Location of interview: Zoom-meeting
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Background
Jens Bjelvenmark is a marine biologist and he has done research at university-level. He became very interested in teaching and is now currently working as a chemistry and biology teacher at Gullmarsgymnasiet in Lysekils kommun. Bjelvenmark is also the coordinator of the scientific program at the school. Together with a colleague, Bjelvenmark started a science club at the school to get students more involved and more interested in science and nature. One goal of that club is to create a better understanding for students of, for example, how different measurement instruments and sensors work.
Dynamene drifters
Some years ago Bjelvenmark came in contact with two students making their final work at the Swedish “gymnasium” level of school. They were building a water drifter called Dynamene, which was supposed to collect different kinds of data just below the surface in the ocean such as temperature and location. This device collects data every five minutes and is out on the ocean for about one month. The goal was for this drifter to be easy to build and also have a low affordable cost. According to Bjelvenmark their result was that the drifters they created were cheaper and better than similar commercial alternatives. The project is still in the making but the drifters have been used by the Swedish meteorological and hydrological station, SMHI to collect valuable data for their projects.
Citizen science
Citizen science is a subject that Bjelvenmark is familiar with both in terms of his participation in the Dynamene project but also his science club. He explains that students who take a specialized nature science course at the school have worked with different projects in the science club where they study the concept of citizen science. There they discuss the concept, analyze what it is and how it is used. A common result is that it is often most fun and exciting in the beginning, but to keep up a project and keep having people interested in time some kind of reward is a must. Another challenge with citizen science that Bjelvenmark mentions is to validate the data that is collected so that researchers can get good, qualitative data in their work. In our project Bjelvenmark believes that having diversas data collectors could be a good way to get over these thresholds since they often are interested in science and the oceans and that they want to help. Therefore, they can be easily motivated to help and will provide qualitative data.
Legal factors
When asked about legal factors in terms of data collecting, Bjelvenmark does not really know about or see any obstacles. He explained further that the only issue SMHI discussed when launching the Dynamene drifters was that it could interrupt boat traffic. Since these drifters are located at the surface or just below it, they can possibly be hard to see. Bjelvenmark relates to our project and cannot see any legal or other issues around divers collecting data.
Challenges with measuring pH
According to Bjelvenmark, pH can be hard to analyze in our oceans, mostly due to there being many different factors affecting the pH levels in nature. He also explains that the details in numbers are very important when measuring pH. For example, one would want as precise numbers as possible where three decimals can have a big difference in research.