ForskarFredag 2025: Exploring the Earth beneath our feet
ForskarFredag, the Swedish edition of the European Researchers’ Night, took place this year under the theme “The Earth beneath our feet” and our students were right at the heart of it!
High-school students building permafrost columns at ForskarFredag2025. Photo: Stella Papadopoulou
On Friday 26 September, from morning till late afternoon, our department contributed two activities that ran in parallel: a hands-on workshop at the House of Science and an interactive exhibit at AlbaNova University Centre.
At the House of Science, PhD student Larissa Frey and Master’s student and student ambassador Joshua Hellmann led what was the first hands-on permafrost workshop ever held at ForskarFredag. A class of 17–18-year-old high-school students, sleeves rolled up, was divided into groups to build “permafrost columns” from crushed ice, soil, and sand, placing vegetation on top to simulate a natural surface. The groups worked with a different mix—reflecting the variety of permafrost soils across the Arctic—and all added miniature 3D-printed houses to their landscapes. These tiny settlements brought home how thawing ground can destabilise ecosystems, jeopardise critical infrastructure, and affect livelihoods of indigenous communities.
Prof. Gustaf Hugelius giving a seminar about permafrost and climate change at ForskarFredag. Photo: Stella Papadopoulou
The workshop was complemented by a seminar with Professor Gustaf Hugelius from the Department of Physical Geography, Stockholm University. A globally recognised permafrost researcher, Hugelius shared stories from the field, touched on climate policy, and answered student questions on everything from research funding to wildlife encounters during field campaigns to the pace of warming. A wrap-up session revealed where each group’s model “community” would be located on the Arctic map, connecting their classroom experiments to real-world regions.
The interactive exhibit of the Department of Environmental Science at ForskarFredag2025. Photo: Stella Papadopoulou
Alongside a clear soil-ice-sand column and a ”real” permafrost sample, the team presented an interactive carbon stocks display—illustrating how vast permafrost carbon reserves are locked in frozen ground and why their thaw matters for the global climate. Images from Arctic field campaigns completed the exhibit, sparking conversations about how scientists study permafrost and monitor change.
By running these two parallel activities, our scientists not only highlighted the importance of permafrost in a warming world—but also broke new ground in ForskarFredag’s history, bringing the Arctic into students’ hands and sparking dialogue about the Earth beneath our feet.
Foreground: Niccolò Mattiotti (left) and Saskia Läubli (right), Background: Julia Wenhuda (left) and Greta Tödtmann (right) at the exhibit for ForskarFredag2025. Photo: Stella Papadopoulou
