School meets science

With its amphibian center and spider husbandry, the Kerstin Reimers Laboratory has always been of great interest to educational institutions. Fortunately, in recent years we have seen an enormous increase in requests for lectures at schools, visits to our laboratory, internships and research projects. The inquiries are no longer limited to Hanover and the surrounding area, but cover the whole of Germany.

In the case of both spider silk and regeneration research on amphibians, the living animals quickly arouse the interest of children and young people in the scientific subject matter. In addition, children are already able to independently recognize the ethical conflict between the extinction of animal species by humans and their use in medicine and are interested in actively developing and discussing possible solutions to this conflict with us. Raising the awareness of future generations forms the basis for anchoring the appreciation of biodiversity conservation in society.

In summary, our subject area not only offers an interdisciplinary approach to the STEM subjects, but also the opportunity to actively engage with ethical aspects. It is very impressive for children and young people to have conversations with scientists (in their words "particularly smart adults") at eye level and to feel that their questions and ideas are taken seriously. As part of this project, we want to use the attractiveness of our subject area to get children and young people interested in the natural sciences and medicine as early as possible. Our offers are explicitly aimed at all school types and age groups.

This project is supported by the Klaus Tschira Foundation.