Harald Sodemann giving a presentation before viewing of the documentary

The ISOSCAN project recently premiered a short documentary at the Bjerknes Centre in Bergen. The film highlights the project’s citizen science campaign and shows how public participation can help improve hydrometeorological forecasts.

Project leader Harald Sodemann introduced ISOSCAN and explained the important role of citizen science. During the 2026 campaign, citizens collected and submitted an impressive 326 snow samples for laboratory analysis. These samples give researchers valuable data that would have been difficult to collect through traditional fieldwork alone.

The filmmaker also shared experiences from the production, and the audience learned more about VitenTV, a free and trusted platform for sharing research.

The documentary captures the enthusiasm of the participants and follows the journey from collecting snow to creating new scientific knowledge in the laboratory.

Watch the documentary on VitenTV.

Text and photo: Mandy Kong

The ISOSCAN approach is quite unique: collecting snow samples from all over Scandinavia with the help of citizen scientists to help improve forecasts of water moving through the landscape. We thought the experience is worth sharing with a wide audience – and so we made a movie! Together with the experienced team from Meyer Film, we’ve been filming in our offices in Bergen, in Tromsø, and in Finse in southern Norway, involving both members of the ISOSCAN team, citizen scientists, and the beautiful natural scenery of Norway. It was quite a unique experience to be part of making such a short documentary, also at times demanding, but highly rewarding. After intense final polishing, the movie is now ready for the premiere! The first public screening is planned for 24 August at the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Science in Bergen.

Text and photos: Harald Sodemann/UiB

Within ISOSCAN, we’re aiming for collecting snow samples over a large part of Scandinavia with the help of citizen scientists. Importantly, we don’t tell participants where to collect samples, they are free to choose a location. With the ISOSCAN dashboard, you can now see where your sample was collected in relation to those from other ISOSCAN’ers. Is your sample from a ‘hot spot’, or quite far from the next nearby sample? The ISOSCAN dashboard also helps to plan new samples, maybe to fill an empty spot on the map, or to repeat a sample collected in previous years. We hope you enjoy the ISOSCAN dashboard!

Text: Harald Sodemann/UiB