Holography and Spectroscopy, particle traps, radio frequency identification, magnetic resonance imaging or electron microscopy – complicated terms at first glance, but they quickly become clear to the students during their visit to Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU). More than 1,800 participants visited the university in 2012 to experiment with these and many other physics topics.

JGU’s three physics institutes have been offering a wide range of experimental opportunities for interested schoolchildren for several years now, with an increasing response, thus rounding off the NaTLab for school children’s physics courses. The spectrum of courses ranges from offerings for elementary school students to advanced physics courses and from courses for individuals to projects that can be carried out with an entire physics course. A new homepage provides a complete and structured overview of the wide range of physics courses on offer at JGU (see right-hand column).

In addition to the almost 50 well-attended experimental courses with more than 1,800 participants, an additional 850 visitors came to the university as an extracurricular learning venue in 2012, for example to attend the “Physics on Saturday mornings” lecture series or to visit the Mainz Microtron (MAMI) particle accelerator.

The benefits of the courses are manifold. “On the one hand, we enable pupils to conduct independent experiments on modern physics topics that go beyond the normal school curriculum,” explains William Lindlahr, doctoral candidate at the Institute of Physics, who has been organizing a large number of the projects since 2009. Teachers often don’t have the time or the appropriate materials for these experiments at school. Another aim is to give pupils an orientation for their future career choices and to help open up the university to the interested public. The courses offered were developed at JGU as part of final theses and have since been supervised by advanced students as part of their training to become physics teachers.

As in previous years, the catchment area in 2012 covered a radius of up to 100 km. While schools in Mainz were underrepresented compared to other regions last year, the state border with Hesse is no obstacle. For some schools from both states, a visit to JGU’s kids labs has even become an integral part of their upper school physics lessons.