Extracurricular places of learning in Berlin

A two-day excur­sion took place as part of the ‘Ex­tra­cur­ricular places of learn­ing’ semi­nar on the Elite Grad­uate Pro­gram "MINT-Leh­ramt PLUS", led by Dr Ni­cole Wolf and Mar­cel Em­mert. On Sat­urday, 11 No­vem­ber 2023, at around 05.45 a.m., 7 stu­dents, some of whom were still very tired, set off for Ber­lin. Two very in­struc­tive and excit­ing days awaited them there, dur­ing which they ex­plored the city as well as 4 dif­ferent muse­ums.

Im­medi­ately after arri­val, the ‘Fu­turi­um’ was on the agen­da, a partly inter­active exhi­bition that fo­cuses on the ques­tion of how peo­ple's lives will or could change in the future in terms of the world of work, transport and healthcare, archi­tec­ture, nutri­tion and ener­gy pro­duc­tion. This was scien­tifi­cally ana­lysed using the latest find­ings and trends from phys­ics, biolo­gy, medi­cine, com­puter sci­ence and chem­istry, but also con­sidered from an ethi­cal point of view. A very worthwhile start­ing point for inter­ested indi­vidu­als and school clas­ses.

Af­ter­wards, a little sight­seeing was a must: On a short walk through the capi­tal, we passed the Reichstag, the Bran­den­burg Gate and Unter den Lin­den and, after a spon­tane­ous visit to the Christmas mar­ket with mulled wine and to­bog­gan­ing, we head­ed to­wards Ku'damm to our hotel. Near­by, we en­joyed our dinner in a very good vegan Viet­namese res­tau­rant and were able to start our sec­ond and final day in the capi­tal fresh and rested the next morn­ing.

There were three exhi­bi­tions on the agen­da today: the Ger­man Mu­seum of Tech­nolo­gy with the ‘Spec­trum’ sci­ence centre par­ticu­larly ap­pealed to the physi­cists among the stu­dents and in­spired them with the help of the highly inter­active exhib­its and excit­ing visu­alisa­tions. ‘A good start­ing point for clas­ses from mid­dle to upper school, which also leaves noth­ing to be de­sired in terms of sub­ject mat­ter,’ says Jakob Springer, Mas­ter's stu­dent for Phys­ics on the Elite Grad­uate Pro­gram "MINT-Leh­ramt PLUS".

Af­ter­wards, we were able to visit the less tech­nical, but no less excit­ing and very in­form­ative exhi­bi­tions at the Il­luseum, a muse­um for opti­cal illu­sions, and the Berlin Spy Mu­seum. After the oblig­atory (part­ly ve­gan) kebab and a fur­ther explo­ration tour of the capi­tal, we set off on our jour­ney home.

Text: Luca Galmbacher, Elite Grad­uate Pro­gram "MINT-Lehramt PLUS"