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Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics

IBED turns science into play at Amsterdam’s Festival Op de Ring

21 June 2025

After months of hard work and preparation, an IBED team presented Het Grote Amsterdamse Vogelspel to around 200,000 people at the Festival Op de Ring in Amsterdam. Festival-goers played a series of fun, science-inspired challenges that revealed fascinating facts about bird movements in and above the city.

On Saturday 21 June 2025, the city of Amsterdam threw a huge festival to celebrate the 750th anniversary of the city. This once-in-a-lifetime event transformed 15 kilometers of the city’s ring road into a car-free party with food, music and fun activities that lasted all day. The University of Amsterdam had a space within the Stad van de Toekomst (City of the Future) zone, where IBED’s team entertained people of all ages with Het Grote Amsterdamse Vogelspel. The IBED team presented five hands-on challenges designed to spark conversations and questions about birds and their connection to the city.

Waiting for the wind beneath your wings: Will you arrive on time? Players rolled gigantic dice to move their bird along migration routes on a map and learn about how birds time their migration and use the wind to make their trip easier.
How can we make wind farms safer for birds? How hard is it for a bird to fly through spinning blades? This game used a model wind turbine and paper airplanes to let players experience what it is like to be a bird flying in and around a wind farm.
From tracks to snacks: What do our gulls eat? In this game, players had to compare GPS tracks of gulls with maps of the city of Amsterdam to figure out what the gulls are doing and where they go to search for food.
Fight, flight, or hide? For those who have ever wondered how birds handle the chaos of New Year’s Eve fireworks, this game used soap bubbles to illustrate how birds behave before and after the fireworks.
Air traffic above the city: Who is flying there? The team created a matching game using images of different kinds of birds in mid-flight taken at ARTIS – where a camera photographs birds as fly over a radar that also records their tracks. (All photos by Bart Hoekstra)

A Festive Atmosphere

It was a hot, sunny and very busy day! During the morning session, parents and children clustered around the games, eager to test their knowledge and skill. Many parents were interested in the real-world applications of our research, while the kids enjoyed competing with each other and learning more about birds and how they behave. The afternoon session was much more of a party. Fewer people stopped by to play the games, but those who did were very curious and wanted to talk in depth about our research.

Team Spirit and Community Connection

For the IBED team, the Festival Op de Ring was an unforgettable experience. It was a blast sharing our story in such a playful way with so many different people, all in the middle of an enormous, buzzing street party. It was truly a unique experience where we connected with the community and felt part of an historic celebration.

The team, led by Judy Shamoun-Baranes, included members of IBED’s Theoretical and Computational Ecology department: Maja Bradarić, Johannes De Groeve, Jan Geisler, Nomikos Skyllas, Bart Hoekstra, Shreyas Gadge, Roberto Cappabianca, Eldar Rakhimberdiev, Bart Kranstauber and Emilie Manzo. All photos and posters by Bart Hoekstra.
Prof. dr. J.Z. (Judy) Shamoun-Baranes

Faculty of Science

Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics

j.z.shamoun-baranes@uva.nl +31 (0)20 525 7436