Single Review on past events

University Day was certainly foreseeable for the school students who attended, but what was unforeseeable was the extent of new knowledge they would take home with them at the end of the event.

A total of 34 high school students in the upper grades from the towns of Konstanz, Singen and Stockach participated in University Day, an event held by the Hegau Bodensee Seminar and the Zukunftskolleg on 8 November. Following a welcoming address by Prof. Dr. Giovanni Galizia, Director of the Zukunftskolleg, and Dr. Norina Procopan, Head of the Hegau Bodensee Seminar, the students divided up into three groups to attend workshops developed by postdoctoral researchers of the Zukunftskolleg: Dr. Jennifer Randerath, Psychology Department, gave insight into cognitive and clinical neuropsychology in her “Move it!” workshop; Dr. Thomas Böttcher, Chemistry Department, explored the subject of “My microbes and me – Who’s in charge here?”; and Dr. Janina Beiser, Politics and Public Administration Department, wanted to know “How do civil wars occur?” and explained to the students what conflict research is all about.

Jennifer Randerath introduced her participants to studies and cases that show how brain damage can impair human motor function. “When someone has a stroke, conditions in the brain are suddenly altered,” reported high school student Rosalie Dreher. “The interruption of blood flow damages certain regions of the brain and this in turn can lead to irreversible injury. Factors exist that increase the risk of stroke, such as high blood pressure, smoking and diabetes. A stroke commonly is unilateral, meaning essentially one-sided. In conclusion, Ms. Randerath showed us additional videos of patients and we tried to diagnose each one based on an evaluation sheet she had passed out. After practicing the diagnosis, we decided to do a kind of play for our presentation to the reassembled group. After assigning roles and speakers, we rehearsed. Two participants each played the role of the patients we had just seen in the videos. This was the best method for demonstrating the different effects depending on which part of the brain was damaged, and it brought home the reality of the situation more strongly.”

Thomas Böttcher explained to his workshop participants that man is inhabited by a tremendous variety of microbes. Many of them are important and useful for our survival, while others can cause serious diseases. Critical in this regard are the chemical signal substances secreted by microbes, which microbes can use to coordinate their behavior and influence each other and their human host. Current research indicates that our microbes not only determine if we are healthy or sick, but even influence our thinking. For this reason, Böttcher wanted to explore with the students the questions of whether humans are controlled by microbes? “One example of a microbe acting on humans is the microbe Lactobacillus rhamnosus,” explained Pirmin Kupffer. “It was added in large quantities to the diet of mice and the researchers found that it increased the occurrence of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) in some parts of the mouse brain and reduced it in others, an effect that has a positive impact on fighting depression and anxiety. If we knew more about microbes, we could use them to treat forms of depression.”

Janina Beiser told her students that civil wars are conflicts in which armed groups fight against the government of a country. Wars of this kind have numerous causes, such as discrimination against ethnic groups. Conflict researchers attempt to understand these causes in order to predict which countries are at high risk of civil war and to make recommendations for preventing civil war. The participants thus learned how the different characteristics of a nation contribute to the outbreak of civil war and how researchers study these relationships.

“One thing Ms. Beiser-McGrath explained to us was one of the most important we internalized that day,” reported Eva Breul. “She said: ‘Only because religious discrimination and ethnic conflict frequently occur simultaneously in an autocracy, does not mean that one automatically leads to the other. This is one of the most important results of research, and the reason we continue’. Another example she gave was a region with few hospitals and severe poverty that was in the midst of civil war. This does not necessarily mean, however, that few hospitals are built because of poverty and that this was the cause of the civil war. In this regard she gave us the advice: ‘A researcher must never be naïve in measuring effects’.”

Ronja Zewe formulated an enthusiastic conclusion of University Day: “The day was very informative and amazingly interesting. We got insight into how the university works, how research is done right and how to work with different sources. Initially we thought we wouldn’t understand anything because the subjects are so complex and we are only in 11th grade. But we can say now that it was one of the most interesting field trips we have experienced in our school career and it may also be very helpful to our futures.”