Every day the marine researchers of the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) slip into their rubber boots. Their research field, the North Sea, is located directly in front of their offices. The AWI thus continues an approximately two-hundred-year research history on the island. But the focus of research has changed: The North Sea is particularly affected by climate change. Cod are already getting too warm – they are moving to more northern waters. Plastic and other contaminants also cause problems for the organisms in the sea. The entire ecosystem reacts to these man-made changes. Showing them is the aim of the exhibition.

The Bluehouse Helgoland stages the Helgoland rock base over two interconnected floors: In the basement it presents the fascinating underwater world of this nature reserve in a large aquarium, which otherwise remains hidden to the visitors of the island. At the top is the tidal zone of the tidal flat. As if they were standing in the tidal flat themselves, the visitors experience the change of ebb and flow in impressive projections all around – sometimes above, sometimes under water.

But it is not just a mere observation. At the ‘Explorers’ visitors can get to the core of the food webs. It’s no coincidence that the famous lumpheads and gannets nest on the steep cliffs: The sea offers them rich food here. But what happens if the cod disappears as a predator, plankton is not available at the right time to feed fish larvae, or lime shells become thin due to the acidification of the oceans? Scientists explain the connections.