A complete success for the people of Wuppertal: It was as part of the ERDF.Stars competition zdi students: indoor laboratory GeoIT Voted 35rd place among 3 other ERDF projects. The focus was on projects that drive digital and green transformation. The award ceremony took place in November 2021 as part of the closing event in the Düsseldorf Rheinterrassen.
The competition: ERFE.Stars in NRW
Developing local and regional potential, developing innovative products or services and bringing noticeable improvements to people in NRW – the projects funded by the ERDF had to meet these and other criteria in order to have a chance of winning the ERDF.Stars competition. 35 projects from all over North Rhine-Westphalia took part in the competition organized by the Ministry for Economic Affairs, Innovation, Digitization and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. Under the motto "Pitch your project", project outlines and a self-made film could be submitted. The five best projects were invited to the final event, where they were able to present their work to the jury and the State Secretary of the Ministry of Economics, Innovation, Digitization and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, Christoph Dammermann - including the digital GeoIT human-environment school laboratory . In the pitch, Wuppertal's educational offerings relating to drones, thermal cameras, microscopy, roof models and virtual reality were presented.
Digital human-environment student laboratory
"The zdi student laboratory GeoIT offers students from the 8th grade the opportunity to get to know and understand their own physical-geographical environment in the city triangle of Wuppertal, Solingen and Remscheid," explains geography professor Britta Stumpe. "In particular, the use of digital geomedia and information technologies is in the foreground with GeoIT."
In various modules or subject areas, school classes and other groups of students can get to know digital geography and geoinformatics, e.g. the heat island of the city, smart farming or renewable energies. The modules are offered as a mobile variant (outdoor) and as a stationary variant (indoor).
In the courses, different drones are equipped with different camera systems and used by the students to collect data. The subsequent data evaluation and visualization trains not only geographical and scientific knowledge but also IT skills. Afterwards, what has been learned is analyzed together with the students from a social point of view in order to understand the effects of their own everyday actions on the environment and to discuss possibilities of how to act more sustainably.
Initially, the Wuppertal student laboratory was funded with ERDF-zdi funds. Further funding for the expansion of the digital infrastructure is provided by ERDF REACT-EU.
You can find out more about the work of the zdi student laboratory GeoIT in the image film.
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ERDF zdi
With the ERDF project call from zdi.NRW, ERDF-zdi for short, the NRW Ministry of Science and the NRW Ministry of Economics jointly promoted the involvement of companies in the zdi work, the establishment and expansion of school laboratories and the strengthening of networks for STEM -Financial support. The funds provided came from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The zdi student laboratory GeoIT is one of more than 160 projects funded by ERDF-zdi from 2012 to 2020. The application deadline for the program was 2020. In the current ERDF period 2021-2027 it can be expected that a new ERDF zdi program will also be launched.
Here you can find out more about the background of ERRE-zdi.
