Fascinating spiders at the BTU Children’s University

Pupils in Years 3 to 6 are invited to attend on Wednesday 15 April at 5 pm in Lecture Theatre 11.122 of the Konrad Zuse Media Centre on the Campus Senftenberg of the University.
Further information  

On Thursday, 16 April, this 45-minute Children’s University lecture will take place at 3 pm and 5 pm in the Central Lecture Theatre Building, Audimax 2, on theBTU’s main campus in Cottbus.
Further information

The speaker for both sessions is Prof. Dr Klaus Birkhofer, who chairs 
the Department of Ecology at the BTU.
 

About the lecture

Almost everyone is afraid of spiders or finds them repulsive. Together with Professor Birkhofer, the children will discover why they need not be afraid of spiders and how important these creatures are to us. For example, they will learn that small jumping spiders can leap 40 times their own body length, that a thread of spider silk could stop a take-off aircraft, or that not everything we know about Spider-Man is nonsense. There is much more fascinating information to share about spiders, and that is precisely why this lecture is being held.

The Children’s University lectures aim to spark an early interest in solving scientific problems and give children the chance to experience the atmosphere of a university.
In this way, BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg enables pupils in Years 3 to 6 to get a taste of university life and presents solutions to everyday scientific phenomena in a child-friendly, exciting manner. This encourages formative experiences that are designed to spark the youngest children’s interest in science and lower the barrier to accessing a university.

Outlook:

The next Children’s University lectures will take place on Wednesday, 6 May, at 5 pm on the Campus Senftenberg and on Thursday, 7 May, at 3 pm and 5 pm on the BTU’s main campus in Cottbus, on the topic ‘What am I: a wave or a particle?’. The speaker is Prof. Dr Götz Seibold, who heads the Computational Physics chair at the BTU.
Young people in Years 7 to 10 who are interested in the School University are invited to the BTU’s Cottbus main campus on Wednesday,
29 April at 3.30 pm. Thespeaker, Dr Svetlana Meissner from the Department
of Wireless Systems, will talk on the topic “The Thought Machine: How to go on a journey of discovery with AI”.

More about BTU’s children’s and youth projects