Competitions

Participants and Target Group:

Seven schools in North Rhine-Westphalia plus a school each from the Netherlands, Belgium, and the Czech Republic.Target groups are junior-high students and teachers of the natural sciences as well as other subjects (English, gym, art, etc).

Assignment:

A team consisting of teachers as well as students must create a new project. Natural-science-related tasks are to be solved by the team in creative fashion. For all projects teams must build either something innovative, something artistic, or something surprising [/astonishing]. Teams select one of the following three topics for their project:

1. Whatever you can move with a wheel (free topic)
2. The electronic jumping jack (assignment for section I)
3. Model atomic force microscope; magnetic surface scanning (assignment for section II)

Suggestions for the kinds of things a team might do as a free topic include:

• Automobiles
• Fantasy machine
• Clockwork
• Record player

Alternatively, the teams may opt to pursue either the "electronic jumping jack" or the "atomic force microscope" task.

Would-be participants must apply in the form of complete teams, which must consist of at least 2 teachers and at most 4 students. The teachers must develop an interdisciplinary lesson-concept for their team's bid to participate. Afterwards the implementation of these concepts will be done during school lessons.

At the end of the competition, the schools present the final results such as models, calculations, experiments, lectures etc. in English.

Lenord + Bauer offers support to the participants during the project phase in the form of professional knowledge and technical support (e.g. provision of small physical units or sensor elements). The contact person for schools in North Rhine-Westphalia is Mr. Strick, the Coordinating-teacher of Landrat-Lucas-Gymnasium in Leverkusen. Mrs. Zweifel of Science on Stage Deutschland e.V. will handle the overall coordination (see below).

Schedule:

Phase 1: Preparation: September - December 2005

September 5^th, 2005: Beginning of correspondence with the MINT-EC schools in NRW and the neighbouring countries. The binding registration of the schools happens up to September 26^th, 2005.

On Thursday, December 8^th, 2005, the first meeting will take place at Lenord + Bauer. At this Prelude Event you will interact to formulate your project plans, present your very first results, as well as be afforded the opportunity to see inside a real company (in this case, Lenord + Bauer).

Phase 2: Implementation: January - May 2006

The teams implement their projects in their schools. Lenord + Bauer is available to help with this as needed. Preliminary results of the projects should be taken note of. Exchanges with the non-German schools and countries ought to happen when possible (email, video conferencing); the contact persons for this are Mr. Strick for the schools in NRW and Mrs. Zweifel for the foreign schools.

Phase 3: Presentation: May 2006

On Friday, May 19^th, 2006, the schools will interactively present their results at the Concluding Event at Lenord + Bauer. A jury will choose the best project.

Phase 4: Wrap-up: 2006

The cooperation between the schools, Lenord + Bauer, and other project partners (e.g. Lenord+Bauer sales representatives in Belgium, the Netherlands and Czech Republic) will be continued. The results of the projects will be made open to the public (on a website), so that teaching staff in other places can also implement the projects.

Why Should You Take Part?

• Exchange with schools from other countries
• Contact with the company Lenord + Bauer (vocational field orientation, internships etc.)
• Getting to create a new lesson concept, which will remain relevant and usable in the long term
• The winning coordinating teacher is getting to participate in Science on Stage 2007 in Grenoble
• Opportunity to visit a facility - for example, the Phänomenty in Lüdenscheid, sponsored by Lenord + Bauer
• The professional knowledge and technical support (e.g. provision of small physical units or sensor elements) of Lenord + Bauer.

Contact persons

Overall Coordination:

Coordination of schools in NRW:

Coordination with Lenord + Bauer and Technical Questions: