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Girls' und Boys' Day

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Logo: kompetenzz.de

For many years, the Hereon has participated annually in Girls' and Boys' Day with a varied and exciting program.

We look forward to many interested students every year!

Future Day on April 25, 2024 - we are booked out!


Unfortunately, less than 24 hours after the registration was published, all places for the Future Day have already been taken.

We look forward to seeing everyone who takes part!

If it didn't work out for you this year, please come along next year.

The following projects await participants at the Geesthacht site:

• The fascinating role of the oceans in the fight against climate change! Have you ever wondered how they help us to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere? Join us in the school lab and explore the mysterious worlds of the oceans!
• Hydrogen, an energy store of the future? You will produce your own hydrogen in the school laboratory and use fuel cells to generate your own electrical energy to power small cars and electric motors.
• Immerse yourself in the fascinating world of plastics! In our school lab, we offer you the opportunity to experience exciting experiments on the topic of polymers. What exactly are plastics, where do we encounter them in everyday life and how are they produced? (from year 7)
• Electronic cube: Participants will build an electric cube and gain insights into electronics in the process.
• "Things you would otherwise miss - what can a high-speed camera do?" We will take pictures with a high-speed camera and finish editing these films. How does a balloon burst? How does a water balloon? How does modelling clay bounce? Do two drops of water meet...
• Be a metrologist for once: A micrometre is smaller than a hair is thick, much smaller. But you can measure it. How do you do that? Surfaces that shine are smooth. That's obvious. Really? If you're interested in these things, you've come to the right place.
• Reporters on the move: Preparing and communicating knowledge and findings from Hereon's research is the core task of the Communications and Media department. In a small workshop, we use the example of the Future Day to show how to go from an event to a report for the Hereon website and a corresponding social media post. To do this, the students take a tour of the centre and, in the role of a reporter, interview other students taking part in the Future Day. To do this, they collect information and conduct short interviews. The aim is to create their own report from the collected material and to familiarise themselves with the basic principles of media work.

Insight into the future day 2023


42 students came to the Helmholtz Center Hereon in Geesthacht today to take a look behind the scenes.

At the campus in Geesthacht, girls and boys gained an impression of everyday working life at the institutes, in the laboratories and workshops, and in administration. Ten departments and their employees took part in the program.

Klas Ove Müller, for example, gave a lecture on zooplankton. Plankton are suspended animals that cannot move against the ocean current and form the basis of food consumption. There are over 100 different species - and more are found every year - which include fish larvae. He also showed the students the measurement systems and research vessels used to study plankton.

With Lucas Merckelbach, the boys and girls learned how to calculate the density of different substances. He used the example of water to illustrate the influence of temperature on it: Warm water has a lower density than cold water. That is why a bottle of warm water floats in a container of cold water.

In Matthias Jacobsen's group, on the other hand, the students were allowed to build their own electronic cube that determines the number by pressing a button. To do this, it runs through the numbers from one to six 1.7 million times per second and stops as soon as a button is pressed. Building the dice took about two hours. As an electronics engineer, Matthias only needs five minutes.

Birte Cirotzki showed her group in the school lab how the Gulf Stream works and what role it plays in climate change. The girls and boys simulated the Gulf Stream in a water tank by adding warm, red-colored water to one side and cold, blue-colored water to the other. As cold water sinks to the bottom and warm water rises to the top, this creates circulation.

Written by the young talents: Mara, Jonas and Juliette.

For information on vocational training, please get in touch with Ms Anja Badura, Human Resources Development in the Human Resources Management unit:

Anja Badura

Human Resources Development

Phone: +49 (0)4152 87-1709

E-mail contact