The PhysicsClub/Student ResearchCenter of the University of Kassel is located in Kassel, Parkstr. 16 and is open for students of all schools in Kassel and Nothern Hess.
We have our own building: 4 floors and about 650 m² of research area.
Pictures: Klick here
Our special equipment: workshop, electron microscope, devices for single photon measurements, laboratories for physics, chemistry and biology, observatory with 7 telescopes, library and a lot of other rooms for the research groups.
The students (age 14 – 19) work in small teams. They work on interesting and up-to-date subjects from science (physics, astronomy, biology, chemistry, IT, geophysics). They acquire the necessary knowledge on their own.
After choosing their research topics during the first months of their studies, they begin to solve their problems and questions by themselves with the help of open-ended experiments in which they use real scientific methods.
Younger students (age 10-13) work on interesting projects and learn the expert knowledge without instruction by teachers, in particular they practice their soft-skills.
Teachers and student-teachers act only as advisors, not as instructors, they train the students in soft-skills and self-organization concerning their work.
We arrange contacts between experts at universities and enterprises which very often sponsor the equipment for the experiments.
The student research teams work on an issue for one or two years. After that some of them take part in the competition „Jugend forscht“; usually with great success. Every year they win state awards, 2006, 2009, 2011,2014 and 2015 even the national award in physics. 2009 we take part in the european science contest. 2014 our team got the national award opf the GYPT.
In the last years our teams got a lot of international awards (CASTIC, ISEF) too.
The concept of the PhysicsClub is unique in Germany and has won a lot of important national awards.
Our staff:12 teachers (High school), 25 university students
Participants: 400 students age 10 to 19 coming from 35 schools
The PhysicsClub was best practice project in STELLA and is co-operator of STENCIL.
Click here for an up to date presentation made for STENCIL
Click here for an up to date presentation (July 2011) with more examples and didactic informations