The Girl’s Day could not have better fulfilled its purpose: The youngest participant of CUI-coordinator Dortje Schirok’s workshop would have loved to remain in the laboratory and begin to work right away.
20 female pupils took their chance at the Girls’ Day on March 27 to gain an intensive insight into the still very male dominated field of natural sciences. For the first time, Dortje Schirok and her colleague Dr. Thomas Garl had split the program into two parts in order to be able to offer most interesting topics of Physics to both the younger and the older pupils.
For the girls from class 9 and 10, the program focused on the functioning of a laser in theory and practice. Subsequently, Dr. Thomas Garl had organized a tour through the quantum gas laboratories of the Institute of Laser Physics (ILP). During the tour and the experiments with solid state lasers, the girls not only got a fascinating insight into the current research in the field of Optics but also the possibility of speaking to the female researchers Dr. Juliette Simonet and Christina Staarmann and consult them about their careers.
The task for the younger girls from class 5 and 6 was to first understand how a LC display functions technically and to then build their own small display. Therefore they not only had to understand the physical processes but above all they needed manual skills in order to design the electrodes. “The most difficult task for the girls was to decide upon a desired motive for their display,” says Dortje Schirok. The physicist is simply impressed by the results: “In the beginning, the girls were very shy and hardly dared to take of the cinnamon rolls during the break.” But the shyness was soon overcome during the common work with glass plates, edding, hydrochloric acid, acetone and liquid crystals.
The mini-technicians were professionally supported by student Lena Sternberg, who currently is doing her bachelor at “Light & Schools”, and ILP-employee Janina Dahms. Dortje Schirok is pleased with the good atmosphere and the achievement of the project: “At the end of this successful day there were ten new displays and lots of happy girls.”