During the SommerKinderUni - an offer of the Children's University Graz - we had the unique opportunity to organize all mornings of an entire week. You can find more information about the KinderUni courses here.

This time frame not only allowed us to delve deeper into our tried and tested workshops, but also to design a new program. We therefore spent an entire morning in the laboratory, where the children not only had the opportunity to visit the laboratory, but also to carry out their own experiments.

They determined the protein content of milk and elderberry juice. As the means used to determine the protein content can only be used with pH-neutral solutions, but the elderberry juice had an acidic pH value of approx. 2, an unintended but valuable learning effect was created. This unforeseen twist allowed the children to directly experience how scientific experiments can sometimes fail. A failed experiment requires deeper investigation to find out the cause of the failure. The students were able to experience first-hand how these perceived failures, as an important part of the scientific process, can help them gain a deeper understanding.

To further reinforce this learning, we created a video at the end of the day highlighting the reasons for the failed experiment. The next day, we presented this video to the children. Our approach showed that not everything always goes smoothly. Nevertheless, we are extremely flexible and can easily adapt to the given circumstances.

The last day of the week was dedicated to a stop-motion workshop, which served as a creative means of science communication and was a great opportunity to use the previously learned comic drawing skills in a different way. Again, a storyboard is required and the participants had to think about how they could implement our suggestions, which were based on concepts of biomembranes. The results are impressive!