Meet LIFE at the Festival of Research - 21.04.2009

Festival of Research at The City Hall Square in Copenhagen on 23 and 24 April at 10-17

University of Copenhagen and the City of Copenhagen are setting up a festival tent at the City Hall Square for the Festival of Research on 23 and 24 April. Here school classes and other people with an enquiring mind will be able to meet LIFE - the Faculty of Life Sciences and experience hands-on research related to climate change.

 

Cows and kangaroos

Come and experience some of the biological mechanisms and organisms that contribute to climate change and our globe’s climate. We invite you inside a microscopic world where life-giving oxygen, sugar and greenhouses gases are produced.

 

You will be able to experience experiments that examine how cows add to the greenhouse effect and how the plants in the field and the trees in the forest do exactly the opposite.

 

Researchers will tell you how they are trying to add a little kangaroo bacteria to the cow’s stomach to make it more climate friendly. Cows emit large quantities of methane when they fart. Methane is a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. Therefore researcher are trying to transfer the intestinal flora from kangaroos to cows as kangaroos do not emit methane when they fart. In time, this may make the gas from Denmark’s many cows less harmful to the environment.

 

Water and biofuel

You can also learn about the importance of the climate for water and about the importance of water for our planet. Researchers will also demonstrate second-generation bioethanol- fuel that you can actually drink!

 

About the Festival of Research

The Festival of Research is an annual national event intended to arouse public interest in and enhance public understanding of the methods, processes, and outcome of research and science.

 

Researchers, research institutions, and research-based enterprises are encouraged to tell the general public about their current activities in an exciting and untraditional way.

 

The Danish Agency for Science, Technology, and Innovation is responsible for the overall coordination of the Festival of Research activities as well as of the opening ceremony.

 

Several municipalities throughout the country are in charge of coordinating Festival of Research activities locally.

 

Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Mary is patroness of the Festival of Research.

 

If you would like more information about the Festival of Research, please contact the Festival of Research Secretariat at .