Kids' University at Kiel University



Introducing fields of current research to children at an early stage

The Future Ocean jointly organizes the kids' university at Kiel University together with the Kieler Forschungswerkstatt (ocean:lab). The lectures are mainly designed for pupils aged 8 to 12 and have been attracting more than 2000 pupils each semester.

 

The Kids University started in autumn 2008 with a focus solely on marine topics. Since then professors from marine science related faculties from different departments of the Cluster of Excellence 'The Future Ocean' have been offering insights into their work and vividly reporting on various subjects concerning the ocean and climate, such as global warming, robots in the ocean, molecular mechanisms in the Cnidarian Hydra, the ocean and human anatomy, overfishing, marine mammals, tsunamis, etc.. In the meantime other topics from the research profiles of Kiel University - Kiel Life Science, Kiel Marine Science, Societal, Environmental and Cultural Change (SECC) and Kiel Nano, Surface, and Interface Science - have been integrated. During the past years the Kids University has become a constant attraction for students, parents and professors alike.

Handouts have been developed for some of the lectures in the ocean context which allow the young audience to review the content at home. They are available for download (in German). Videos of each lecture are online on this website as well (in German). This enables students, parents and teachers to learn more about marine systems and about new scientific research.

The Kids' University is organized by the Kiel Science Factory and sponsored by the Leibniz Institute for Science Education at the University of Kiel (IPN) and is promoted through a media partnership with the local newspaper Kieler Nachrichten and Geolino, a nationwide magazine for kids.