This nocturnal event received approximately 900 visitors from among the general public. Combining education with entertainment, visitors had the opportunity to see real deep-sea species from the IEO-Vigo collection, and could then find these species in their habitat thanks to the "reef survey wall tapestry". Visitors also had fun learning with the augmented reality sheets showing a redfish, a blackmouth catshark, a deep-sea skate and an octopus in their environments, thanks to the Spectacular! App.

European Researchers' Night takes place yearly, on the last Friday of September, and is the occasion for a Europe-wide public event, facilitating the understanding of the impact of researchers' work on citizen’s daily life, and encouraging young people to embark on research careers.

The Spectacular! app in action at European Researchers Night, Vigo. (c) IEO-Vigo 

All of the ATLAS educational materials are available from the education tab, including the reef survey mat mentioned above.

By Pablo Durán, Mar Sacau and the IEO Vigo team.