The project week for high school students is an educational program of the CRC 1316, the Faculty of Physics and Astronomy at the RUB and of zdi (Zukunft durch Innovation; Future through innovation). Which takes place twice a year.

From April 3-6 , the project week was hosted for 60 female students in grades 8 to 10. The girls chose be- between four workshops: plasma physics, astronomy, physics in medicine and sustainable house design. The project “From Plasma to Gold Layers” allows the students to gain an insight into the generation and applications of plasmas. Using the sputter coater and professional laboratory equipment, the students could deposit and examine gold layers themselves. During the project week, the students attended a lecture by Prof. Dr Judith Golda on “hands-on plas- mas – between material science and medicine“, and visited laboratories and the Planetarium Bochum. On the closing day, the results of the students’ research were presented in a poster session, followed by a quiz and lunch. The next project week in Autumn for female and male students in grades 8 and 9 will take place from October 9-13 .

The Faculty of Physics enables students to complete a school internship in Physics. From March 27-31, we welcomed two interns from grade 9. After a short introduction to plasma physics, the students worked on the sputter coater. They examined the coated samples. For this purpose, they determined the transmission with a spectrometer, the layer thickness with the profilometer and the conductivity. The interns also gained experience in handling data and in data evaluation. The goal of the internship is also to give an impression of laboratory work and current research. Therefore, doctoral students, bachelor’s and master’s students guided the interns through the labs and presented their experiments. The interns also visited the NRW state competition “Jugend forscht”, which took place at the Ruhr University Bochum March 27-29 .

The “mobile plasma workshop” took place for the first time on June 5, and visited an 11th-grade physics class in Essen. In the beginning, the students watched a short movie and received basic knowledge about plasmas and their applications. After a short quiz, they worked on the experiments in smaller groups. The students examined the light emitted by plasmas with an optical spectrometer and observed how electric and magnetic fields can influence plasmas. Information on the experiments on the students' tablets guided the workshop. The workshop was a success, and the students showed great interest. Through the students’ feedback, we have gained insights on how to improve our workshop going forward.