THE PUPILS' LABORATORY TECHLAB - A BRIDGE BETWEEN SCHOOL AND ENGINEERING SCIENCE

摘要

For several years, technically oriented disciplines, in particular engineering, have internationally faced a dramatic decline in the number of students enrolled. This stands in a disproportionate relationship to the great demand of highly skilled experts and leading executives in the aftermath of economic upsurge in Germany and Europe. This gap is likely to keep widening in the near future if the general education system does not counterbalance this trend. In particular, the fields of electrical and mechanical engineering have a lack of new blood. After a massive collapse in the mid 90s, the number of first-year students has increased in the last five years but remains at a very low level. Surveys of the ZVEI (Zentralverband Elektrotechnik- und Elektronikindustrie e. V.) and studies of the VDI (Verein Deutscher Ingenieure) have revealed that, in the long run, this will suffice to meet the demand of skilled engineer in Germany. Both organisations call for motivating and appealing to pupils in order to increase the number of first-year students/new students [1]. Teenagers have a wrong idea about the respective occupational fields and make career choices without having acquainted themselves with the professions. Jobs in the technical field are, furthermore, often negatively associated with bad experiences in the scientific subjects in school by the pupils (such as being too difficult, too uninspiring/dry/theoretical). Consequently, companies have difficulties in finding a sufficient number of motivated apprentices/trainees. What are the reasons for this situation? Traditionally, pupils are educated in the conventional scientific subjects. Yet an intensive cross-linkage to applied subjects, like electrotechnical, mechanical or civil engineering is missing. Pupils do not become aware that the aim is not to accumulate knowledge but rather to be able to respond flexibly to various challenges in later professional life or, at least, to have a basic knowledge of technical requirements. Training pupils to be basic researchers rather than practical workers is the primary aim of schools, in particular grammar schools because teachers are educated in this way. The existing canon of subjects in schools additionally complicates a shift towards a cross-linked perspective of basic research in form of applied subjects. In school, pupils learn the basic laws of physics yet the actual professional life of a technician or an engineer remains unkown and dubious/unclear/obscure. This is where the pupils' laboratory TechLab of the Leibniz University of Hannover sets in. The occupational field of an engineer is made perceptible by means of practical experiments: Mobile phones, CD-players and bicycles are familiar items for adolescents in their daily life. In the TechLab they can research the operating modes of these commonplace items in independent experiments and thereby grasp the accomplishments of engineering. For example, they can examine the recharchable batteries, dead spots or the actuation of the display of a mobile phone or study the laser and the digital-to-analogous conversion of a CD-player [2]. The TechLab makes visible the engineers way of thinking and working.