Outreach and public awareness
Despite their widespread occurrence and demonstrable importance in many fields of geosciences and oceanography, contourites are still relatively little known, poorly understood and rarely covered in educational programmes. Despite the involvement of deepwater circulation in the causation of ice ages, ocean chemistry and mass extinctions, and of rapid climate change in recent times, it is an almost unknown phenomenon outside the scientific world. For most people, the shaping of continental margins and deep oceans by bottom currents and their deposits remains an undiscovered mystery.
We therefore propose a strong cross-thematic focus on outreach and public awareness activities:
- Developing and maintaining a lively and up-to-date web page for the project.
- Working to improve education and training within the formal education sector at universities and high schools.
- Forming a Student Chapter for this IGCP project to positively encourage the active involvement of younger scientists (and to provide a potential model for IGCP centrally).
- Participating in national and international conferences (often as thematic workshops).
- Developing of Continuing Professional Development training packages.
- Focussing on public awareness opportunities through media press release, popular science articles, public lectures, and television and radio opportunities.
