#Natural Sciences #Physics #Astronomy #Didactics

As an extracurricular learning venue, the School Laboratory builds a firm bridge between school and research. At the same time - and this is what makes it special - it enriches the education of university students with practical and research-related elements and is a centre of competence for teachers.

The UniLab was founded in 2004 by the Didactics of Physics working group of the Humboldt University. Conceptually, the UniLab is not only based on experience with phenomena-oriented forms of learning, but it also combines with this approach increasingly important key competencies such as the skills for network learning. The courage to experiment, to make mistakes and to take risks, as well as initiative and team spirit are encouraged, as are scientific qualification and enthusiasm for the natural sciences.

The programme is aimed at school classes, interested pupils and teachers. The offers range from topics on acoustics and mechanics for primary school pupils to the determination of elementary charge and quantification of energy for the upper school. An overview of what is on offer for school classes as well as teacher training courses can be found at:

• Offer for school classes
• Further training for teachers

Located in the building of the large wind tunnel in the immediate vicinity of the university buildings of Chemistry and Physics as well as the Erwin Schrödinger Centre with its Natural Science libraries, the UniLab School Laboratory is an important institution in the Adlershof Science and Technology Park.

Under the title "From vision to optics", three modules of the Unilab have been awarded the Polytechnic Prize. The prize was awarded in 2015 for the best extracurricular learning concepts. The three modules Pinhole Camera, Kaleidoscope and Colours didactically implement a phenomenological approach which, with the help of sensory experiences and their descriptions, offers pupils a special access to the basic concepts of optics.

In 2018 Gabriela Ernst was awarded the prize for outstanding achievements in the teaching of physics by the German Physical Society. For more than 10 years Ms. Ernst, from the Walter-Gropius-School, Berlin, has been working at the UniLab School Laboratory of the Didactics of Physics working group (Institute of Physics of the Humboldt University of Berlin) and is involved in the training of students as well as in the projects of the UniLab for pupils.