On Thursday 19th March, SRAP New Zealand representative, Dr Marta Ribó was invited to the Kristin School to talk about her journey as a Spanish researcher in Aotearoa New Zealand. The event was organised by the Consejería de Educación en Australasia and the Language Circle.
The students were very excited and made lots of question to Dr Ribó about her journey, but also about the research she presented. Dr Ribó is a marine geoscientist, senior lecturer at Auckland University of Technology (AUT), and presented her research on exploring the deep ocean.
Dr Ribó gave three presentations to three different student groups and at the end the students gave her a thank you card a gift, to thank you for her time with them.
A student said: “Dr. Ribó spoke about her studies and her work in the Netherlands, Taiwan, Australia, and New Zealand as an oceanographer. We learned about how they use instruments like robots to investigate the ocean floor and map it to understand what it is like and whether it is healthy. For example, she said they brought back sediment samples and discovered that there are microplastics there as well. Additionally, Dr. Ribó has researched the impacts of trawl fishing and ship anchors on the seafloor and coral. The information they gather helps scientists study climate change and the ocean floor in general. Something that was very interesting to me was when she told us that most of the ocean remains unexplored”.
Dr Ribó says “It was a very rewording day, and I was very happy to be invited to spend the day with high school students. It’s amazing how incredible interested they all were, and I hope to have encourage some of them to keep theirs studies on marine sciences.”
