TEACHER PROGRAM

Teachers of natural sciences are important partners for the GDNÄ in awakening and promoting enthusiasm for natural sciences among schoolchildren. It is gratefully supported in this endeavour by the Bayer-Science & Education Foundation. Since 2012, the foundation has been awarding travel grants to particularly committed teachers to enable them to attend the meetings. The response to this program has been extremely positive. On this page, two teachers, Monika Pastor and Thomas Fleischer, report on their experiences and ideas for further developing the program.

Building more bridges between science and schools

Monika Pastor is a physics and chemistry teacher at the Leverkusen Schlebusch Comprehensive School. She teaches secondary school students in years 7 to 10. With funding from the Bayer Science & Education Foundation, Ms Pastor attended two GDNÄ meetings – and is already looking forward to the next one.

Ms Pastor, which meetings did you attend?

MP: Most recently in Saarbrücken in 2018, where the focus was on the digitisation of science. Two years before that, I attended the meeting in Greifswald, which focused on natural sciences and medicine.

It is not common for school teachers to attend scientific conferences. What motivated you to do so?

MP: I’ll have to go back a bit. The story began a few years ago with preparations for a learning workshop at our school. This is a special form of learning in which students can develop their own questions and search for solutions independently. At the time, I wrote to the Bayer Foundation in Leverkusen and asked for funding – with success. Two years later, an invitation to the meeting in Greifswald was in my letterbox, just like that. I found the idea exciting and accepted the invitation.

It was your first GDNÄ meeting. What was your impression?

MP: The presentations were excellent and, for the most part, easy to understand. What I particularly liked were the insights into ongoing research projects. As teachers, we always have to ask ourselves how all this can be taught in school and whether it can be integrated into the curriculum.

How do you tackle this task?

MP: What always helps me a lot is discussing things with colleagues who are experts in the field. That was possible at both meetings because a colleague from my school was also there. She had also received a travel grant. We planned the trips together and benefited greatly from our exchange.

What ideas from the meetings were you able to implement at your school?

MP: For example, the discovery that fullerenes, highly symmetrical molecules made of carbon atoms, are suitable as a means of transport for drugs. I learned about this in Greifswald and was able to integrate this new knowledge very well into a lesson. In Saarbrücken, I learned how well graphene is suited for use in lithium batteries. This fits in perfectly with our upper school curriculum, which includes electrochemistry and new materials made from carbon.

You were able to exchange ideas with your colleague at the meetings. Did you also make contact with other teachers there?

MP: We didn’t know if there were any other teachers there and didn’t try to find out. For now, it was enough for us to exchange ideas with each other. But in the future, I could well imagine discussing the new ideas from science with colleagues from other schools and federal states. The results could then be passed on to the teacher training program, which I have been involved in for many years.

Are there already ideas on how to further expand the contact between the GDNÄ and the school?

MP: There are many possibilities. One starting point would be project-based teaching in the upper school. At our school, the Global Goals are at the forefront. Recent projects have focused on hydrogen cars, mineral oils in cosmetics and cancer therapies, for example. The topics are chosen by the students, who are encouraged to search for solutions largely on their own, especially outside of school. Contacts with scientists would be very useful in this regard.

Will you be attending the next meeting in Würzburg?

MP: I would very much like to come and hope that we will receive another travel grant. The money would cover our accommodation and conference fees, which would make it much easier for us to attend. The Würzburg focus on ‘Science in Pictures’ is very useful for the school. I already have a few ideas.

‘Physics lessons at the cutting edge’

Thomas Fleischer is headmaster of the Carl Zeiss Community School (TGS) in Weimar, Thuringia. He attended both the 2016 meeting in Greifswald and the 2018 meeting in Saarbrücken and describes his impressions as a teacher scholarship holder here

Mr Fleischer, you have already travelled to two GDNÄ meetings. Would you attend a third time?

TF: Definitely. I’ve already made a note of the next date and have had the days free for quite some time.

What appeals to you about this conference?

TF: I meet people there who I wouldn’t otherwise get to know. The lectures by Nobel Prize winners and other top-class researchers – in such concentration, it’s really something special. When I go home, I take with me an overview of new developments in my fields of physics and astronomy – and lots of ideas for my lessons.

Can you give us an example?

TF: At the conference in Greifswald, I learned a lot of new things about gravitational wave detectors and particle accelerators. My students also benefited from this afterwards – with physics lessons that are now right up to date. Or the lecture on self-driving cars, which fitted in very well with the science lessons and robotics project at my school. A very successful project, by the way.

In what way?

TF: The small autonomous robots that our students are developing have already come third in a competition in central Germany. At one of these competitions, I met the managing director of the Bayer Science & Education Foundation. He made sure that I received an invitation to the GDNÄ meeting.

If you had three wishes for the GDNÄ, what would they be?

TF: It would be great if the conference could be held here in Weimar one day. Before a meeting further afield, I would like to know whether other teachers from my area have been invited. Then we could exchange ideas from the outset and possibly travel together. I would find detailed information about lectures that are accessible to a general audience helpful in the program – some of the content is very specific for listeners who are not familiar with the speaker’s field of expertise. And between meetings, it would be nice if we could maintain the connection between schools and the GDNÄ.

Do you have any ideas?

TF: What immediately comes to mind are guided tours of GDNÄ members’ research laboratories, preferably in our region. I’m sure my students would be very enthusiastic about that. Once we start such projects, I’m sure other ideas will develop that are interesting for both sides.