21.05.2014

DESY school lab in Zeuthen celebrates 10th anniversary

Dr. Martina Münch, Education Minister in Brandenburg, acknowledges success story.

On 21 May, the physik.begreifen school lab at DESY in Zeuthen celebrated its 10th anniversary. So far, more than 25 000 young people took the chance to work like a scientist for one day at the DESY lab, thus gaining a lively insight into the fascinating world of physics. Simultaneously, with the visit at DESY, pupils get the opportunity to experience day-to-day research in all its facets.

Young pupils at a vacuum chamber experiment in the school lab in Zeuthen.

At the occasion of the anniversary, guest of honour Dr. Martina Münch, Minister of Education, Youth and Sport of the federal state of Brandenburg, said: “I would like to express my congratulations to the DESY school lab on occasion of its 10th birthday! At the school lab, young people will find answers to questions like ‘is there eternal silence in the universe?’ or ‘How much is the weight of one litre of air?’ They can do experiments and they are supported and challenged by their own experiences and their own activities. The school lab is a useful and fascinating complement to natural sciences classes at school.”

“We at DESY are deeply committed to promote young people,” said Professor Helmut Dosch, Chairman of the DESY Board of Directors. “Our DESY school labs are an ideal format for sparking the interest of youths for natural sciences and technology and also making them familiar with the functioning of science (and scientists).

The DESY school labs in Hamburg and Zeuthen invite school classes of different grades to attend experimental days and project weeks in which the pupils can do their own experiments. The experimental programmes are targeted to specific age groups. The Zeuthen school lab offers vacuum and cosmic subjects in which the pupils can make alarm clocks ring noiselessly and will hunt for cosmic particles. Apart from the programmes for school classes and interested young people, the school lab offers training courses for elementary and secondary school teachers.

“We, the scientists, are fascinated anew every single day by the mysteries of nature,” said Professor Christian Stegmann, head of the DESY institute in Zeuthen. “This is why we are not only interested to convey professional competence but also to particularly communicate the fascination of research. This, indeed, works extremely well with the school lab programmes.”

physik.begreifen in Hamburg was the first school lab of this kind launched by a Helmholtz Centre. Today, the DESY school labs are fully integrated into DESY’s promoting programmes for young people and are active in numerous networks on regional and national levels.

More information:
http://physik-begreifen-zeuthen.desy.de