Parallel Session Proceedings »
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2.4.4 STEM Talent Support: How to Create Innovative Young Researchers
Extracurricular STEM talent support plays a major role in strengthening the self-efficacy expectation of young people and stimulating their epistemic interest in the STEM disciplines. Typical examples are long-term out of school programs and so-called student labs located at research facilities. Providing hands-on experiments, they verifiably stimulate students’ interest in science and technology. The DLR_School_Lab Oberpfaffenhofen, operated by the German Aerospace Center DLR, is one of these student labs with long-term experience in the field of STEM talent support and cooperates with numerous institutions fostering talents. School student research projects bring young talents in close contact with state of the art research and development. Particularly, long-term and complex research activities are considered suitable to generate excellent next-generation researchers. This contribution presents examples for typical aerospace-related school student research projects, including their basic conception, the practical preparation and implementation, and the development of technological spin-off products. Examples for such projects are - remote sensing of vegetation from stratospheric balloons in comparison with satellite data - a high-tech demonstration experiment for the Galileo satellite navigation system - the “Space Box”, a command and control unit for performing experiments with and on water rockets Following the presented guidelines, the workshop offers the opportunity to develop new ideas for innovative school student research projects based on the participant’s specific interests.