The students met at Bekkelagsbadet in south-eastern Oslo and got a tour of and an introduction to the Oslo Fjord School. The Oslo Fjord School educates local school children on the multispecies lives in the fjord and their growing fragility in the face of the ever-growing cities around it.
A key theme throughout the excursion was discussing the effects of rapid urbanisation and species invasion in and around the fjord, and students were among other things tasked with finding specimens of life in the shallows.
As an example of life under threat from technology that we are only just realising the effects of, Elin T. Sørensen discussed the role of the ship worm in the Oslo fjord.
While the worm naturally eats wooden refuse that blow into the water from surrounding forests, it eventually got an appetite for ship hulls. Ship hulls were thus tared to prevent infestations, which poisoned the Oslo Fjord's ship worm population.
The event closed with a meditation session wherein the students were asked to listen to an artwork by Feral Practice (artist and researcher Fiona MacDonald), 'Mycorrhizal Meditation'.
