On Saturday 21 February, Glasgow Science Centre hosted Eye On The Ocean, a public ocean science showcase. The event coincided with the arrival of AGU Ocean Sciences Meeting 2026 (OSM26) delegates in the city and the Scottish school half-term holiday. It was too good of an opportunity to waste not making good use of having the world’s leading ocean researchers in Glasgow! In total, 9 organisations ran interactive exhibits for almost 2000 visitors, most of them families with school-age children.
At the EPOC stand, Vikki Gunn and Russell Arnott (Seascape Consultants) introduced visitors to the AMOC, supported by EPOC researcher Hongdou Fan (Max Planck Institute for Meteorology). The stand made use of large screens; one broadcasting recent Channel 4 news coverage of the RAPID array expedition, giving visitors a current-events hook into the science. The other showed Hongdou Fan’s high-resolution ocean-climate simulations; a striking and mesmerising visualisation of the circulation systems at the heart of EPOC’s research.
Adam Blaker and Parvathi Vallivattathillam (National Oceanography Centre) projected ocean data onto a Puffersphere 3D touch globe. Visitors explored currents, carbon uptake and heat transfer, spanning historical records and future projections. This was complimented by Ryan Driscoll presenting the AtlantiS showcase, demonstrating how warming sea temperatures alter competition between species and drive instability through the ocean food web, a direct line from AMOC-driven climate change to consequences visitors could interactive with.
The Scottish Association for Marine Science brought both physics and technology to the day. Taken from SAMS’ Ocean Explorer Centre, Anushka Miller and Kristin Burmeister showcased autonomous underwater gliders and ran water-mixing experiments.
David Thornalley, Jack Wharton and colleagues from University College London dedicated a large portion of the exhibition to palaeoclimatology. Visitors had an opportunity to play a foraminifera-sorting game, inferring past climate conditions from two contrasting assemblages, using hand-sized 3D-printed foram models. The climate tipping demonstration also proved popular; a marble-fed game showed how small, incremental changes in a physical system can trigger rapid and irreversible transitions. A palaeo-themed colouring corner proved especially popular with younger visitors.
Five more organisations rounded out the day. The National Maritime Museum brought a Micronesian navigational stick chart and the original 1992 Friendly Floatee rubber duck, the toy whose accidental ocean spill helped scientists track ocean currents for decades. The Scottish Marine Animal Strandings Scheme ran a cetacean skull exhibit and an activity identifying otoliths (plastic stars) recovered from dolphin scat (plasticene!). The University of Glasgow’s Native Oyster Programme explained its work reintroducing oysters to Scottish waters. There was also an exhibit of deep-sea images from the University of Edinburgh.
At lunchtime, a ticketed event in the Centre’s IMAX, the largest cinema screen in Scotland, saw Helen Czerski (University College London) deliver a public talk on why physical oceanography matters.
Her talk was followed by a public debate with a twist. David Thornalley, Kristin Burmeister, Lea-Anne Henry and Russell Arnott each championed a piece of scientific equipment, arguing to save it from being cast overboard from a sinking research ship. The audience of around 120 interrogated the panellists on the size, weight, cost and scientific merit of each item before voting on which to jettison. Up against a sediment corer, a CTD rosette and a robotic glider, Lea-Anne Henry made an impassioned case for her ROV and won.
A 3D screening of the film Ocean Odyssey followed, tracking a juvenile humpback whale through the ocean currents. Even so, the robotic glider stole a little of the spotlight on its way back to the exhibition hall, gathering a small fan club of its own and no shortage of big science questions from the youngest audience members.
For several of the EPOC researchers involved, the day was as much about developing their own communication skills as it was about reaching the public. Translating concepts like thermohaline circulation or foraminifera assemblages into language a ten-year-old can follow is a much different skill set from writing papers.
Thanks all the exhibitors and volunteers who made the day a success, and to the team at Glasgow Science Centre for their support.