On 13 February 2023, eleven young New Zealanders and five primary and intermediate teachers will travel to the Campbell Island in the Southern Ocean on board HMNZS Canterbury. Students and teachers will join a team of environmental leaders and scientists from GNS Science, University of Otago, and Cawthron Institute as part of BLAKE’s sixth BLAKE Expeditions programme on a scientific voyage of discovery.

Campbell Island is 700 km south of New Zealand, the most southerly of New Zealand’s Sub-Antarctic islands in the Southern Ocean. With an abundance of wildlife, it is one of the world’s most pristine nature reserves. The Sub-Antarctic islands and Southern Ocean are of significant ecological importance with large numbers and diversity of seabirds and marine mammals. The Southern Ocean regulates global climate and plays an important role controlling heat and carbon exchange between the atmosphere and ocean.

Students and teachers will work with a range of scientists, to explore the region and collect peat cores from Campbell Island to generate paleoclimate records, collect plankton from the Southern Ocean to investigate the diversity of ocean plankton communities, and conduct marine intertidal surveys to determine where and when kelp and associated invertebrate species might establish in Antarctica under different warming scenarios.

BLAKE Expeditions aim to ignite and fuel a passion for the environment and provide opportunities for delegates to combine natural science and research with an ocean adventure.