16.05.2012

20 000th visitor at the DESY school lab in Zeuthen

Today, the 20 000th pupil was welcomed to an experiment day at the vacuum lab of the Zeuthen hands-on school lab physik.begreifen. To celebrate this, all classmates of the Friedrich Schiller Gymnasium who also came to DESY on this day received a small souvenir. As from the opening of the school lab in 2004, DESY closely cooperates with the schools in the region, and the Friedrich Schiller Gymnasium is one of the first DESY partner schools in Brandenburg.

The class of the Friedrich-Schiller-Gymnasium at DESY.

Knowledge is an essential good and basic research brings about a multiplication and development of knowledge. The Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY is one of the leading accelerator research centres for investigating the structure of matter. The DESY school labs intend to support and foster the ambition to gain insight – a basic element of human nature. These offers of the vacuum lab and the cosmic lab are very well accepted and booked out quickly. More than 2500 young people make use of physik.begreifen in Zeuthen every year.

Just like the school lab at DESY in Hamburg, Zeuthen also started with a vacuum lab. At the beginning, this project was substantially supported by the Initiative and Networking Fund of the Helmholtz Association. Since the inauguration, 20 000 pupils of 4th to 11th grade took the opportunity to occupy themselves for one day with this physics topic in theory and practice. In doing their own experiments the pupils are eager to get to the bottom of physical laws.

With the school labs, DESY wants to convey the fascination of physics and create competences. “Within our research centre, this form of science communication is by now regarded as an integral element of our programme,” Christian Stegmann, head of the DESY institute in Zeuthen, said encouraging the school lab’s activities.