Girls' Day 2019

Girls' Day is a countrywide event to introduce schoolgirls to disciplines and careers in which women are usually underrepresented. More information on this event can be found here.

This year, it took place on Thursday March 28^th 2019.

Early career scientists in W2W and at the partner institutes offered workshops in Munich (LMU) and in Mainz (JGU).

• At the LMU in Munich, the meteorological institute hosted a workshop called "Wind, Wetter und Klimawandel" (in English: "wind, weather and climate change"). The participants took part in a role play to learn about the challenge of climate negociations. They experienced the everyday life at the institute by hearing about studying and doing research at the institute. The highlight of the event was the visit of the roof instruments. The program of the workshop is available here.

Participants in front of the meteorological institute in Munich (photo: Andrea Schäfer)

• At the JGU in Mainz, the institute for Atmospheric Physics hosted a workshop called "Was braucht man für eine Wettervorhersage?" (in English: "what do we need to make a weather forecast?"). The aim of the workshop was to introduce the topic of weather and weather forecast to the participants. Since making a weather forecast would not be possible without first measuring the state of the atmosphere, the participants built and tested a thermometer, a windmill and a wind vane, after attending an introductory lecture by Volkmar Wirth. The testing of the instruments took place in the afternoon in the wind tunnel of the institute, in which the wind speed can be adjusted and the reaction of the windmill can be observed. In addition, the participants could hold their head in the wind tunnel! Two more experiments were performed in the afternoon. First, the participants created clouds using a cloud chamber and they could observe why clouds do not fall to the ground, what happens with clouds that mix with dry air, and what clouds are really made of. Second, the participants let rain drops, hailstones, snowflakes and the Death Star float in a model of a vertical wind tunnel. Finally, the participants visited the instrument platform on the roof of the institute where precipitation, radiation, wind and sunshine duration are measured. From there they could enjoy a nice view on Frankfurt.

Participants and volunteer making experiments in Mainz (photos: Sarah Knöll, ALP JGU Mainz)