First digital zdi BarCamp: hygiene concepts, new digital approaches and financing

For the first time, the annual zdi-BarCamp took place digitally: Over 80 representatives from the zdi community discussed the MINT promotion of young talent in NRW. This makes the digital zdi BarCamp the largest online BarCamp to date on the subject of promoting young MINT talent in NRW. Above all, the possibilities of digital cooperation with schools, companies and other partners in order to offer children and young people exciting MINT offers were discussed.

Summer holidays 2020 - activities and offers from the zdi community

These summer holidays are certainly a very special experience for most students, teachers, lecturers and parents. The Corona crisis completely paralyzed the second half of the year in schools and extracurricular learning locations. Slowly there are more and more loosening in North Rhine-Westphalia, from which the zdi community is also benefiting. Some regions organize interesting online and face-to-face offers. Everything is about programming an app or a 2D printing basic course, hands-on experiments or escape room technology.

Today is World Environment Day - for almost 50 years it has been raising awareness for more environmental awareness

World Environment Day, a global day of action proclaimed by the United Nations Environment Program, has existed since 1972. At that time, the first World Environment Conference was held in Stockholm. And since then, on June 5th, around 150 nations have taken part in various activities to draw attention to the endangerment of the global ecosystem. Germany has been involved since 1976, for example with an environmental festival and a bicycle rally in Berlin. Since the 70s, environmental awareness has become more and more anchored in the German population. For children and young people of our time, sustainability is no longer a foreign word.

Research at home - zdi-Zentrum Kreis Borken lends out robots and research kits

Bee bots, blue bots or ozobots - it's not just at the zdi center in Borken that tons of great educational material have been lying unused in the cupboards for weeks. The Borken-based company is now reacting with a creative solution to convey robots and co. to young explorers: they lend their research kits to private households. With great success!

With a hygiene concept against the Corona crisis: Finally on-site courses again

After the 10-week lockdown, the first easing of extracurricular courses has followed in the last few weeks. Finally young people can experiment again and experience MINT. They may also have a lot of catching up to do after weeks of homeschooling. This also applies to extracurricular offers such as zdi courses, which could also hardly be offered or only offered online. As a result, great new digital course offerings have been developed. Nevertheless, the equipment for experimenting that is available in the zdi student laboratories is difficult to transport to each individual household. "One of our core pillars of the EnergyLab is to learn about technology and natural sciences through experimentation," says Dr. Thorsten Balgar, zdi coordinator in Gelsenkirchen.

Gladbach's zdi network is going through the crisis innovatively with digital communication

What to do if partner meetings cannot be held? When physical contact is prohibited? So how can networking work? The current situation due to the corona pandemic is forcing the zdi community to find numerous new solutions for work. In Mönchengladbach, the zdi network has now used a video for digital communication instead of an on-site partner meeting. With unexpected success.