The "Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften (LNdW)" stands for the Long Night of the Sciences in English and has been taking place for 15 years in Berlin and Potsdam. It is also called the smartest night of the year due to its scientific and breakthrough character taking place yearly. A diverse program, comprising hundreds of exhibitiors, offers thousands of visitors the opportunity get exciting insights into the scenery of sciences, and research. Visitors are invited to participate in fascinating experiments, as well as to exchange the latest research findings in various fields. The LNdW not only enables exchange of information and knowledge between experts, but also between experts and people without any prior knowledge. The range of the topics, thereby, is as broad and varied as our world: Be it ancient studies or modern technologies, languages, natural sciences, music, or medicine and health, everyone will find something that takes their fancy.

We took part in the LNdW this year and presented our project Enzymatic Flagellulose , its aims and findings, to the audience visiting the chemistry faculty in the campus of the Technical University Berlin. Visitors, from all ages, including complete families and friends had the opportunity to see our lab and perform easy experiments while guided by our students. We presented a very clear workflow highlighting the problem and our steps to solve it. Our participation in the LNdW allowed us to draw attention to both the iGEM competition in general and to the problematic issue about microplastics. We could entrust many people to be more conscious about microplastics and take better care of its consumption and disposal, and in turn, reduce the contamination of our environment. At the same time we established contact for subject-specific questions and we thrilled many high school and university students to participate in the iGEM competition next year. Furthermore, we received positive feedback from our visitors and they encouraged us in our aims and optimization of our idea. It was very important for us to take the non-scientific audience to the lab so the general public gets the feeling that scientists have a transparent and open mind, willing to communicate and share. This event pretty much relates and adds value to the “Science Café”, where we took the lab and the scientists to the people. We are already looking forward to LNdW 2016!