Everyone probably imagined the summer holidays 2020 a little differently! The protective measures due to the corona pandemic severely restricted all planned activities or travel. The zdi community is also struggling with this exceptional situation and many courses and holiday camps could not take place at all or not in the usual form. But the zdi community has adapted to the necessary restrictions and has put together an eventful and varied summer holiday program for students interested in MINT, partly on site and often in digital form.
The zdi community reacts to the corona protection measures
Since the lockdown in March 2020, the zdi networks and zdi student laboratories have been working on new course concepts. They test the appropriate video conference systems and digital collaboration tools and plan the necessary hygiene regulations.
So the zdi networks and zdi school labs with their partners were finally able to over the summer holidays 160 MINT offers for students throughout North Rhine-Westphalia, also in the usual variety of topics. In Leverkusen, high school students analyzed soil and water samples and drew conclusions about the local ecosystem. Young people in Lippe learned how to build their own 3D printer. In the Rhein-Sieg district, the question of how to use the regenerative abilities of the zebrafish to develop medicines for humans was investigated.
Many of the courses and holiday camps were offered online. But in the meantime, some face-to-face workshops have also been offered again - thanks to hygiene concepts created early on by the zdi networks and zdi student laboratories. The team from the zdi regional office attended some of the exciting zdi summer holiday courses...
NRW State Secretary Kaiser in the virtual escape room
In the third week of the summer vacation, State Secretary Klaus Kaiser attended the digital online course "Escape Room Technique" of the zdi center MINT4u Bottrop. Together with the participants of the course, the NRW State Secretary was "locked" in a virtual room and had to try to find a way out of the escape room with his team using experiments and scientific puzzles.
Would you like to know which experiments Mr. Kaiser used to free himself from the Escape Room? Here is the follow-up report.
Düsseldorf – Discover the future digitally and creatively
During the 2020 summer holidays, the zdi network Düsseldorf offered a whole 50 holiday courses with almost 700 places for all classes from 1st to 13th. Every day, between eighty and one hundred students of all ages tried out the Heinrich Hertz vocational college, where the holiday workshops were held.
The zdi holiday course “Living in the Future” was a week-long playful approach to the key issues of the future. From robotics and artificial intelligence to mobility and urbanization to renewable energies - the course instructors Lina Schnieders and Yannika Böcker from the HABA Digitalwerkstatt tried to address as many facets of the world of tomorrow as possible and to prepare the students at a young age for the present and future raise awareness of future problems.
Click here for the follow-up report.
The fascination of the brain – summer holiday course in the Rhein-Sieg district
What do humans have in common with zebrafish neural circuits? And how can we use the regenerative abilities of the zebrafish to develop a sensor for people with hereditary hearing loss? The online summer holiday course dealt with these and many other fascinating insights into the functioning of human and animal brains “Neurobiology, behavioral science & genetics meet: who is behaving how and why?“. Together with the neuroscientific research institute caesar, the zdi network : MINT in the Rhein-Sieg district offered schoolchildren in grades 10 and 11 an exciting journey into the endless expanses of the brain.
And the preparations for the autumn holiday courses are already underway. We'll keep you up to date!
