A project unique in Germany offers schoolchildren excursions to energy sites in the north-west

Educationally designed excursions to biogas or wind power plants, energy research laboratories and other energy sites in the North-West region – this is what the ‘Energieparcours-Nordwest’, a project unique in Germany, offers. It was officially launched on 27 May 2011 at the University of Oldenburg. Among the keynote speakers was Dietmar Schütz, President of the German Renewable Energy Federation.

The “Energieparcours-Nordwest” is an initiative of the interdisciplinary project “Education for Sustainable Energy Supply and Use” at the University of Oldenburg, which developed the trail in close co-operation with the city of Oldenburg’s regional education network “Climate & Energy”

The Bremen/Oldenburg metropolitan region has been committed to crisis-proof and future-oriented renewable energies for many years. “The ‘Energieparcours Nordwest’ offers young people an excellent opportunity to network with and learn about companies in the sector,” explained Schütz.

The aim of the trail is to provide pupils with insights into the energy sector, to convey theoretical principles to them in a clear and authentic way, and to inform them about career paths and entry opportunities in the field of renewable energy. The university’s subject-specific teaching teams work in close collaboration with the individual energy sites to develop subject- and year-group-specific programmes that tie in with the curriculum for the school subjects of General Studies, biology, physics, chemistry, Computing Science and mathematics. These range from educational trails and company study visits to expert talks and discussion panels, right through to topic-specific hands-on experiments.

Energy education is not yet firmly established in school curricula. “The university’s subject-specific teaching departments are providing significant impetus in this area and carrying out important scientific development work, which has now culminated in the ‘Energieparcours-Nordwest’. “The fact that teacher training students are actively involved in the development and accompanying research speaks to the high quality of our teacher training,” said Prof. Dr Katharina Al-Shamery, Vice-President for Research.

Teachers can book the excursions on offer via the ‘Energieparcours-Nordwest.de’ web portal, covering topics such as ‘Water, heat and energy in a leisure pool’, ‘How does a passive house work?’ or ‘Future careers on the rise – a tour of a wind farm’.

Further information