zdi Girls Camp 2023: MINT educational opportunities for everyone

On October 26th, the zdi girls camp took place for the second time at the highlight of this year's Heroine October. At the girls' camp, the community can show what it has to offer in terms of STEM girls' work. The offers are also put to the test: What are young people - especially girls - really interested in and how can enthusiasm for technology be aroused? In over 13 workshops, students from the Gütersloh district were able to try out MINT educational opportunities together, examine them closely and give feedback.

Portrait: Phyllis Ndugire from the zdi center cleverMINT

Phyllis Ndugire was already enthusiastic about engineering at the age of six, is now doing her doctorate at the Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences and heads the zdi center cleverMINT, which is affiliated with the university. In the zdi heroine portrait, we shed light on her career and the importance of strong women's networks.

In an interview: Julia Krayer from Fraunhofer UMSICHT about mushrooms as sustainable materials

©Fraunhofer Prudence

Julia Krayer from Fraunhofer UMSICHT has been researching how materials made from fungi and plant fibers can be used in the “FungiFacturing” project since 2019. In an interview, she tells us what special challenges and properties these sustainable materials entail and how these special features can be made accessible to a broad public in terms of knowledge transfer.

6 tips for STEM girls work...

The welcome speeches at the zdi girls' camp caused enthusiasm among the schoolgirls.

With a stable proportion of girls of around 45% in the zdi measures carried out, the MINT girls' work at zdi.NRW has proven to be particularly successful. Which measures contribute to this?

"Electrical engineering instead of Bibi's Beauty Palace"

fltr: Juliane Orth, Gesche Neusel, Kerstin Helmerdig, Elin, Annika, Vera Bauer, Prof. Dr. Susanne Keil © Martin J. Schulz

On March 31, the research team from "gender2technik" presented the results of the "Electrical engineering instead of Bibis Beauty Palace" project. The question: How does technical journalism become interesting for girls and young women? During the panel discussion that followed, Kerstin Helmerdig from the zdi regional office discussed the results with other experts.