• Participating schools

  • 	Wellingtonschool
    	Mallinckrodt Gymnasium
    	L'institut Saint-Dominique

  • Mobility

    • Mobility Ayr, Scotland
    • Mobility Dortmund, Germany
    • Mobility Mortefontaine, France
    • Workshop Maastricht, Netherlands
    
    
    • Survey
    • Conclusion

Downloads

• Podcasts
• Physics of energy
• Programme
• Your own thermal image (En. Fr. Ger.)

Mobility 2 in Dortmund

Monday

Lovely welcome! The second mobility in Dortmund officially started at the opening ceremony in the morning of Monday, 15th April 2013. The Headmaster of Mallinckrodt Gymnasium started with a speech about the importance of our project. After this our first workshop began: Physical experiments lead by Mrs Geck, Mr Unkelbach and Mr Bogdoll.

Jailed in a Styrofoam box! - For a body-heat experiment! It sounds harder than it was. Two participants had to sit in a Styrofoam box and had to stay in there for five minutes. By taking measurements every 60 seconds we obtained and image of the body heat distribution. It was one of four stations we experienced!

After a great lunch at the school canteen we went on a Challenge: DigiCam tour! In groups of six pupils including all nationalities we had to take pictures in front of places which we found by solving the answers to a quiz. After a race head-to-head we had a winning team and the day was finally ended....

Tuesday

Tuesday was a rather 'jam-packed' day for us. We all had to meet at the Mallinckrodt Gymnasium for 08:30. That is hard for the Scottish students who often only wake up at that time. We had a nice walk to Dortmund University of Applied Sciences where we met one of the lecturers who gave us an inspiring talk about the future of mobility which he believes will belong to electricity.

After that we were able to have lunch at the university and it was interesting to explore an environment that is foreign to us. We all had to ask the canteen staff for food in German and therefore the French and Scots had the ability to improve their language skills. At 15:00 we were all very lucky as we were given the opportunity to meet the Mayor of Dortmund, Ullrich Sierau. We visited the Town Hall and went into a large conference room to view his presentation on the BVB football team-Dortmund's football team. This was fantastic and we were all able to ask him questions using the microphones, which was a great privilege.

Then we were all able to go off with our exchange partners into the town and this further helped to strengthen our language and communication skills.

Today we had a great time learning about useful (renewable) sources of energy not derived from fossil fuels. However, although we have learned that although electric cars seem like a good replacement for petrol and diesel cars, the energy that is used to power them is still derived from coal, oil, gas and nuclear energy. Therefore, electric cars may reduce poisonous gases building up in built up areas and around schools but they are not a fantastic solution to our energy crisis. We need to solve this problem from the root (i.e. changing our sources of energy)!

Wednesday

On the Wednesday, we met at school and then travelled to Gelsenkirchen. Here, we went to an energy lab at a science park. A professor presented a powerpoint that explained to us how 'The Greenhouse Effect' contributes towards the negative aspects of Global Warming. The professor explained to us how the temperature is increasing because of the light intensity and this contributes to increased levels of carbon dioxide and other pollutants. We then went up onto the roof of the energy labs and had a look at solar panels. We were told how they worked and what their main purpose was - taking in the sunlight energy and converting it into other forms of energy that would be used by human beings, it is also eco-friendly and doesn't cause global warming.

After lunch,we visited Remondis, the biggest recycling plant in Europe. Here is some information about the company - we learnt that the recycling centre was built on top of an old power plant and coal mines and last year over 1 million tonnes of high quality raw materials were recovered from over 1.5 million tonnes of rubbish. Remondis also dismantles electronic equipment and reuses the components (for example the precious metals and plastics). They also remove any hazardous substances from the equipment to prevent them from harming the environment. Videos of the plant and its company were shown to us before we visited the centre so that we knew better the processes of recycling better. We learnt how they recycled metals and plastics by seeing the machines we had previously seen in the videos.

Then we went on a tour to see ourselves the centre at work.

In the evening we went to a theatre and watched Starlight Express- a show on rollerskates which fitted into the theme of Comenius...renewable energy and movement.

Thursday

We have to change the world!

On Thursday, 18th April, we had a panel discussion about transport in the 21st century. But before the discussion, we split up into two groups. We searched for questions on the internet. Then we went into the assembly hall. There, three experts Mr Steinhueser, Mr McPhee and Mr Unkelbach waited for us. We asked them our questions. It was interesting because we all had different opinions and started to discuss lots of themes. At the end we came to the decision that the transport of the 21st century has changed and we have to save our economy, because when everyone has car our earth will be destroyed in a few years.

It' s hot, hot, hot!!
After having something to eat in the city of Dortmund, we walked back to school, because there was a show of the "Physikanten". The Physikanten explained physics experiments to us in a funny way. One of the pupils had to take part of the show and he did a good job. But the top of the show was an experiment with fire. The men put fire in a box and turned it around. Suddenly there was a pillar of fire. It was amazing, because the looked great and when they stopped everybody was really sad.

The Best of Show!!!!
After that show we had time to do what we wanted. But at 19:00 we had to arrive at the Mallinckrodt-Gymnasium to prepare drinks and pretzels for the visitors to the show, which began at 19:30. The German show was very well done and everybody liked it, the Scottish and French pupils, too, although they couldn't understand everything because the show was in German. But all in all it was the Best of the Show and everyone liked it. (www.physikanten.de)

Friday

On the last day of the Comenius mobility in Dortmund, we met each other in school to evaluate the workshops and write summaries of what we had done. The summaries were made up of reports of each day, of teaching materials and of pictures. Then we all received ourwell-deserved certificates from the Headmaster of the Mallinckrodt Gymnasium. Then we had a little time to say goodbye to the new friends that we had made.