Our team member Ute Hentschel-Humeida (from GEOMAR’s Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel) introduced an audience of over 1000 high-school students to the secret world of sponges, and to the scope and activities of project SponGES. The talk was part of the Darwin Day 2018 event organised at Kiel University on November 9th, 2018 – this year’s topic was “How microbes affect our lives and evolution”.