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30,000 schoolchildren have collected soil samples across the country. The result is the most extensive mapping to date of Danish soil in and around cities. It turns out that our country is saturated with industrial chemicals.

The chemicals are everywhere: Not a single soil sample from Denmark is clean

In the fall of 2025, 30,000 students got their hands in the soil in forests near cities, in urban areas, in fields, and in schoolyards. It has contributed to groundbreaking research. Foto: Thomas Evaldsen
In the fall of 2025, 30,000 students got their hands in the soil in forests near cities, in urban areas, in fields, and in schoolyards. It has contributed to groundbreaking research. Foto: Thomas Evaldsen
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Cornelius Saltby Levin Egerup and Carl Sønderby Falck showed up in the fall of 2025 with a shovel, a logbook, and test tubes and helped carry out the largest and most comprehensive measurement ever of the health of Denmark’s near-urban soil. The boys aren’t scientists – on ordinary days they’re in 8.L at Nordsjællands Gymnasium and Primary School – but the results are striking all the same.

Along with 30,000 other public-school students in 97 of the country’s 98 municipalities, they dug samples in forests, cities, schoolyards, and fields in their local areas. Now the first results from the mass experiment, organized by the national science education center Astra, have been released. They suggest that there is, quite literally, not a single spot in Denmark untouched by industrial chemicals.

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