A chance encounter between Queensland Museum senior vertebrae curator Patrick Couper and QAEHS MPhil student Stacey O’Brien has resulted in QAEHS staff and students participating at the World Science Festival Brisbane last week. Awareness on the exposure of marine animals to microplastics is certainly growing, however the QAEHS team conveyed the message that microplastics are essentially everywhere and our environment is literally littered with millions of small pieces of plastic.
All of the QAEHS volunteers found the festival hugely inspiring with Stacey saying, "It was wonderful to be involved in World Science Festival 2019 in conjunction with the Hatchery exhibit at the Queensland Museum. It was a great experience to meet students and the public to help raise public awareness about microplastics." QAEHS PhD student Francisca Ribeiro commented, “It was great to see that little kids were so aware of plastic pollution and really wanted to learn more about it. It is amazing how they are actually trying to educate their parents at home on how to manage waste and be more environmentally friendly!”
Another QAEHS PhD student, Elvis Okoffo, who attended the event said, "It was a wonderful and great experience. I really wasn’t expecting the students and the public to be so aware of microplastics, plastic pollution and their impacts on the environment, but they did, which is good for researchers in the area. Personally, it was such a great opportunity to share with the students and the public what we are currently working on as a team at QAEHS and cannot wait to be there next year with some findings from our research."
