Project workshop

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The term project workshop primarily describes the organization of a group of schoolchildren's or students' own projects at universities or other institutions. The main difference in contrast to the conventional method of imparting knowledge through teaching is that groups can work on learning material independently in a team based on their own interests and experiences. The projects can be diverse and both technical, social or economic in nature, such as vehicle and aircraft construction or environmental protection .

history

The development of the concept goes back to 1985, when numerous student initiatives at universities, e.g. B. the Technical University of Berlin, initiated the formation of its own project workshops. Today, numerous universities offer their students the collaboration and financial support of project workshops in their fields.

technology

The technical universities in particular offer events in the field of model and mechanical engineering, but also in the field of computers and software design.

environment

From 1990 onwards, the youth environmental movement, which was more and more organized outside of the environmental associations, emerged in various locations as “action platforms”: environmental or project workshops, as they were called - depending on the thematic focus. The first project workshop was set up in November 1989 under the name Nature Conservation Public Workshop in the old Trais-Horloff train station . A few months later it had a new name: "Project workshop for old train station Trais-Horloff" - today's project workshop in Reiskirchen-Saasen (moved in 1993). In 1990, however, others quickly emerged, including the Wetterau environmental workshop in Niddatal-Assenheim, then the youth environmental offices and environmental workshops in cities in Lower Saxony. By 1992 around 40 such open spaces had been created. The word “project workshop” was the program for the houses and rooms: workshops in which projects can be worked on were defining.

Most of the workshops cooperated on an equal basis. There was no association, no coordinating body, but various campaigns, circulars, the beginning joint website Virtual Project Workshop , which is now a broad platform for campaigns and topics, but still contains the old parts, such as maps with the project workshops shown. The “German Environment Day from Below” in 1992 was an extensive joint project which, in terms of content and organization, represented a significant contrast to the state and business-related mainstream in the German environmental associations. In 1993 the environmental festival AufTakt in Magdeburg represented the numerical high point of the youth environmental movement, which was mainly organized in project workshops. When the fashion waves Agenda 21 and sustainability moved through the environmental movements in the mid-1990s , some environmental and project workshops were located there - while others were in opposition of the environmental movement and thus also to the large associations.

At the end of the 1990s, the contacts and cooperations between the project workshops shifted to the various currents, which in turn established contacts with other parts of the social movement: The independent project workshops, some of which even radicalized in their rejection of internal and social rule, for example with anarchist and internationalist groups, the others with the NGOs or even the Green Party, as whose opposition they actually emerged. The former were heavily involved in the resistance to the Expo 2000 and, as a network, formed a critical voice with clear criticism of sustainability , capitalist environmental protection strategies (e.g. ethical investments) and authoritarian prohibition policies such as protected areas as a counterpoint to mainstream environmental protection. Project workshops of this trend, which are still active today and in some cases also known supra-regionally, existed in Bad Oldesloe , the Rote Flora in Hamburg, the KTS in Freiburg or Reiskirchen-Saasen. Some still exist today. The latter were active in grassroots democratic networks (e.g. in the context of the grassroots revolution ) or, increasingly, in environmental associations. The youth environmental offices in Lower Saxony remained most permanent, from which the environmental workshop in Verden developed into an eco-center built up with considerable funds , from which the German association Attac was founded. The diversity of the currents is documented by the only Attac-critical book Mythos Attac published in German-speaking countries , which was created in the project workshop in Reiskirchen-Saasen.

Today many environmentally oriented project workshops have disappeared.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Example ( Memento of December 29, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) for the term in educational events
  2. ↑ Jörg Bergstedt: Agenda, Expo, Sponsoring - Research in Naturschutzfilz , IKO-Verlag in Frankfurt, 1998. ISBN 3-88939-613-5 , later divided into two volumes, published as new editions: Reich oder rechts? , IKO-Verlag in Frankfurt, ISBN 3-88939-652-6 and Sustainable, modern, loyal to the state? , SeitenHieb-Verlag in Reiskirchen, ISBN 978-3-86747-007-0 .
  3. ^ Jörg Bergstedt : Myth Attac , Brandes & Apsel Verlag in Frankfurt. ISBN 3-86099-796-3