Project Day: Women in Science

For one day at Platanus everything was about Women’s role in scientific and technological developments.
Every year group learnt about a particular scientist and did some age-suitable experiments related to the contributions that “their” scientist made to big important scientific advancements. Younger grades learnt about ‘Margaret Hamilton and how to power rockets’, ‘Josephine Peary and the colour of snow and ice’ and about ‘Margaret Hamilton and the code to the moon’. Older grades learnt about ‘Maria Telkes and the power of solar energy’, ‘Laura Bassi and the pressure of air’ and about ‘Marie Curie and how elements are formed’.

Apart from this, we were visited by actual living women scientists who spoke to individual classes about why and how they became scientists, how their everyday life looks like and about very exciting discoveries in their fields.

We were so lucky to have:

• Dr. Carolina Doran and Dr. Kate Laskowski astonishing us about their research on animal behaviour
• Dr. Nadine Haase surprising us with facts about the human body
• Dr. Sandra Kerbler helping the students extracting the DNA of strawberries
• Eng Linda Kerkhoff who talked about her job as a game developer
• Dr. Foteini Vervelidou who set up a video call with the European Space Agency so students could ask anything they wanted about space exploration
• Dr. Sibylle Schröder who amazed us with her career path and her job studying light pollution
• Dr. habil. Ilona M. Otto who tackled the very actual topic of climate change
• Dr. Emmy Sharples who made us all want to become experts in particle accelerators

It was such an exciting and festive day in which students and staff had fun but also raised awareness for the important and sometimes neglected role that women have in important science discoveries and in scientific professions.

We would like to thank our great subject leader of Natural Sciences Ms. Kappes and our dedicated Erzieher Mr. Veazie for the great idea and the elaborate planning of the day, our parents’ association “Platanus & Friends” for the financial support and of course all the scientists who took the time to visit our school and deliver amazing mini-lectures!

We are very much looking forward to our „Women in Science Day“ next academic year!