After arriving and being welcomed by Renate Mayer, Head of Research Acquisition, the group of young researchers immediately got to work. They strolled along the newly constructed, accessible path into the castle forest. At the first station, Lynn Thiermeyer explained the concept of "mobility" and how food and crops can be connected . Starting with global trade from 1492 onward, with Christopher Columbus's conquest of America, the presentation covered the history of the potato from South America, which traveled over 11,000 kilometers, the distances other agricultural crops such as grains, fruits, and vegetables from different continents to Europe, and the concepts of "seasonal" and "regional." The students then demonstrated their knowledge in a short quiz. Using a world map, they matched various fruits and vegetables to their main growing regions.
After a short snack break, the children explored the topic of mobility in the animal kingdom with bird expert Kurt Krimberger. Birds are important indicators of habitat quality, regardless of whether they are resident birds, migratory birds, or passage migrants. The availability of food sources is crucial for birds, whether seeds, insects, worms, snails, amphibians, fish, or small mammals; each bird species has its own specific feeding habits. Swallows, for example, arrive in Germany from their wintering grounds south of the Sahara in Africa starting in March and fly back again in mid-September. Their migration route covers over 4,000 kilometers. Corncrakes and red-backed shrikes travel 6,000 to 8,000 kilometers annually. The children mapped and measured the migratory routes of birds from north to south on an extra-large map. A visit to a woodpecker's nest and an examination of bark beetle damage rounded out this fascinating topic.
The final lesson began with the topic of the Earth's water cycle and the mobility of water . The inquisitive students explained the water cycle themselves and together estimated the distances water travels from the Dachstein Glacier, via the Mandlingbach stream, the Enns River, and the Danube, to the Black Sea in Romania – a total distance of 2,400 kilometers. A fascinating aspect was the varying residence time of water droplets in the atmosphere (8-10 days), in plants (7 days), lakes (days to a few years), groundwater, ice/glaciers (up to 10,000 years), and oceans (more than 4,000 years). The children built a mini wastewater treatment plant and experimented with the purifying properties of soil substrates. Finally, the young researchers traced the journey of invasive neophytes to Europe (Canadian and giant goldenrod, Himalayan balsam/Indian balsam, and Japanese knotweed) and estimated the distances they traveled.
The diverse stations offered the young researchers many exciting insights into the topic of "mobility" and ensured an educational and entertaining morning.
Pictures from the Children's Academy 2024 in Raumberg-Gumpenstein
