School laboratory

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School laboratories are usually extracurricular educational institutions or extracurricular learning locations that offer children and young people experience for research, touching, trying out and understanding in the natural sciences , technical subjects - and, more recently, increasingly in the humanities.

Development and forms

Since the end of the 1990s, almost 400 (as of January 2018) so-called student laboratories have been set up in Germany, for example at universities, research institutions, science centers, museums, technology and start-up centers and in industry. Experiencing the natural sciences outside of school is a very special attraction for many children and young people. In school laboratories at research institutions and universities, devices and technologies can be presented and tried out that cannot usually be made available in schools.

The direct contact that children and adolescents can have with scientists in a school laboratory enables the knowledge and methods of modern research to be transferred quickly and unconventionally into the classroom. A success that can be proven: The interest of schoolchildren in the natural sciences is sustainably promoted through a visit to the school laboratory (see e.g. studies by Katrin Engeln and Manfred Euler (2004): Research instead of Pauken, Active Learning in School laboratories in: Physik Journal 3 (2004) No. 11, page 45 ff. And corresponding articles in the documentation Genlabor & Schule (2005) (see below)).

The school laboratories are characterized by a variety of concepts. On the one hand, this leads to great dynamism with new, innovative projects; on the other hand, it makes it difficult for outsiders to present the scene in a uniform manner. According to LernortLabor - Bundesverband der Schülerlabore eV, the following categorization can be used under the common term "school laboratory":

  • Classical school labs (Schü Le r La bor K ) are addressed to all the classes and thus form a great way to widespread promotion. Their courses are based on the curriculum and are attended as part of school events.
  • Student Research Centers (Schü Le r La bor F ) have their focus in the individual development. Children and young people work independently on their own research topics, sometimes in small teams, and thus often prepare for competitions such as Jugend forscht or the Science Olympiads.
  • Learning and teaching laboratories (Schü Le r La bor L ) are part of the teacher training. They already offer the student teachers an obligatory opportunity to get to know work with children and young people in the school laboratory and to design it themselves. Thus, teacher training is an integral part of the operation of didactic or technical school laboratories.
  • In school laboratories focusing science communication (Schü Le r La bor W ) lessons are taught from research and development of the operating organizations, mostly at big research institutions and industrial companies.
  • School labs related to entrepreneurship (Schü Le r La bor U ) traditionally large companies in the industry are affiliated and have the entire value chain from design to finished product to the content. They enable students to gain an important, often first, strong insight into economic thinking and acting in combination with research and development in the MINT area.
  • The category of student laboratories with a strong career orientation (Schü Le r La bor B ) is particularly in times of lack of young talent in the STEM area an important significance. With intensive insights into the various professions, these school laboratories support the schools in their task of professional orientation for young people.
  • In school laboratories "Engineering / Development and Production" (Schü Le r La bor e ) working to develop and experiment with the children and young people in rooms with workshop character. In their free time, they come to the school laboratory, similar to a school research center. The rooms are usually not only open to schoolchildren, but also to active parents or other interested parties.
  • School laboratories for humanities, social and cultural sciences (Schü Le r La bor G ) consider phenomena that result from the effects of humans on their living environment. With the help of topics from history, society, law, literature and other areas, the results of human activity are examined and their significance for each individual and society is assessed.

Since 2011 school laboratories have also been places for MINT - sustainability education .

Similar terms and their meanings

  • Youth Research Center : Student Research Center
  • MINT-MAKER garages : Student research center
  • Open youth workshop : student research center
  • Learning research laboratory: teaching-learning laboratory

Examples

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ [1] , compare www.lernort-labor.de.
  2. ↑ [2] , LeLa magazine , issue 5, March 2013, pp 2-4, ISSN  2196-0852
  3. ↑ [3] , cf. Network of school laboratories in the field of MINT sustainability education.