New Perspectives in Science Education

The role of Science in our society is increasing constantly leading to the fact that several new positions in science related jobs are currently vacant and this sector thus has a high demand for new workers. To generate interest especially among young people concerning the quite disliked field of chemistry, several initiatives have risen in the last few years. One of these initiatives is the project “Science4Generations” of the University of Osnabrück, a science communication format especially designed for high school students. In retirement homes students perform exciting scientific experiments about everyday phenomena which were previously prepared in school. During the preparation process the students designed didactically reduced explanations for the senior citizens. At different times in the retirement homes the students perform these experiments and discuss the underlying scientific concepts with the senior citizens. In the course of an accompanying study to this science communication format the students were questioned in a pre- post- and follow-up design concerning the theoretical constructs of motivation, interest, self-concept, emotions and a rating of the discipline chemistry in general. In this presentation, the concept Science4Generations and some selected experiments will first be outlined. Subsequently, the essential findings of the questionnaire-based survey will be presented and discussed.