Make Your School
How can students learn to deal with the challenges of digitalization? In the project "Make Your School - Your Ideas Workshop" project, they have the opportunity to tackle problems at their school using digital and technical tools. At so-called hackdays, they actively help shape their school: They choose projects themselves with which they want to improve their learning environment and implement them by programming, tinkering and crafting.
Contact persons at ZML
Michael Gauss
Phone: +49 721 608-48206
E-mail: michael.gauss3∂kit.edu
Alexander Hock
Phone +49 721 608-48218
E-mail: alexander.hock∂kit.edu
As part of "Make Your School", we organize hackdays at various schools in the region every year together with ther KIT Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology (ETIT ) . Our mobile makerspace and a dedicated team of students from the faculty and KIT support the participants.
At the start of the hackdays, we guide the young people through a creative process based on design thinking. They analyze problems and challenges at their school and then look specifically for topics for which a technical solution can be developed. The first prototypes and solutions are then designed, which all participants present to each other. Teams are then formed to work together on the best ideas and implement them.
This is where our mobile makerspace comes in: with tools, sensors, actuators, various microcontrollers and 3D printers, we enable the young people to put their projects directly into practice. The students are on hand to advise them, provide technical input, help with programming questions and encourage participants to work independently.
Hackdays make an important contribution to digital education in schools. They enable young people to get to know a variety of digital and electronic methods and tools and to use them themselves. At the same time, they strengthen key skills such as problem-solving, teamwork and independent and creative work.
The schools are the organizers of the respective hackdays and receive technical and organizational support from KIT.
"Make Your School" is a project of Wissenschaft im Dialog and is funded nationwide by the Klaus Tschira Foundation. In the Karlsruhe region, we are supported by the Schroff Foundations.
Other "Make Your School" activities include the annual Maker Festival, where the best hacks of the school year are presented and awarded prizes. KIT is one of 19 nationwide network hubs that work together to improve digital and technical education.
At KIT, we work closely with the KIT Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology (ETIT). At the Hackdays, we show young people in a very practical way how solution-oriented thinking and working work in their studies and careers: They learn to recognize problems and solve them with digital and technical tools. We also regularly invite scientists to present their research and provide exciting insights into degree courses and career prospects.
