School pupils given taster of science programmes at College Carrousel

On six days during the first two weeks of April more than 700 secondary-school students came to Zernike Campus for College Carrousel, a brief introduction to the different science programmes at the University. The Science LinX exhibits in Bernoulliborg and the Energy Academy played a key role.

The University of Groningen holds its College Carrousel each year to kindle the enthusiasm of fourth-year secondary-school pupils in its degree programmes. The pupils are given an interactive introduction to programmes that could be of interest to them. Pupils who have chosen the Nature and Technology profile and have an affinity for science came to Zernike Campus to find out about the options at the Faculty of Science and Engineering.

The morning programme consisted of lectures and seminars, and the afternoon programme of a guided tour of the campus. This included a taster of the Industrial Engineering and Management programme at the Energy Academy. Here the pupils could have a go on Science LinX’s Smart Grid exhibit, which is part of the RE:charge travelling exhibition. They had great fun finding the best way to distribute energy to different cities, and proved very good at it: they hold the current high score.

Thinking

The exhibition in Bernoulliborg also helped ignite the pupils’ passion for science, mind ball proving particularly popular. In this game you beat your opponent by thinking as little as possible. The pupils were given the opportunity to try out the exhibits, and were given a quiz on the exhibition afterwards.

Each day ended with a prize ceremony with prizes for whose experiment was best, who had the best answers and who had the highest score in Smart Grid. Then it was time for the pupils to get back on the buses back to their schools throughout the northern Netherlands, with a better idea of their options and hopefully more enthusiasm for science.

Article: Berend Mintjes, FMF