School labs

In countries having only few natural resources, and therefore being dependent on technological and scientific progress, education is the greatest good. In Germany the foundation of this education is laid in primary and secondary schools. However international comparative surveys like PISA and TIMSS displayed deficiencies in this basic education.

Therefore many people fear that working on a high professional level is at stake here in Germany, and subsequently economic decline may follow. Natural and engineering sciences [...] are in the focus of present innovations(cf. [Haupt et al., 2015, p. 14]).

For this reason basic scientific education is of great importance. To stimulate the interest of children and adolescents for mathematics, information technology, natural sciences and technical disciplines (known as "MINT" subjects) outside school separate labs and opportunities for experimenting were established. They were most often found in collaboration of research and development. The first such initiatives werde developed in the 1980s[cf. ibid]. In the beginning only few labs followed. Though triggered by the study results of TIMSS, published in 2000, foundations gained momentum. Most of these extracurricular learning facilities focus on MINT-subjects, which is also due to the study results. By now there are more than 300 school labs in Germany (cf. [Haupt et al., 2015, page 15]).

We have put together some information about school labs for you. For this purpose we investigated on how school labs can be defined, how they can be categorised, and what they are actually aiming at. Furthermore you will find information on general research results.