STEM Education

Fine Arts and STEM

STEAM refers to the integration of the visual arts into a STEM-based education. The abbreviation stands for science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics. Integrating the visual arts into STEM curricula motivates young people to engage more in science-related activities and present STEM concepts in innovative and visual ways.

STEM

Processes of change shape our society. Anyone who wants to actively shape social change must first acquire a basic understanding of scientific and technical relationships. The structure of our society is characterised by the inexorable process of change towards a high-tech knowledge society and, as a result, STEM courses, in particular, are promoted and heavily advertised at colleges and universities - because in Germany, but also worldwide, well-qualified young people are needed for research and development to sustainably secure research competence and innovative ability for the world of tomorrow.

Mathematical-scientific-technical education inevitably helps to understand the modern world and is accordingly a fundamental part of contemporary general education. For this reason, we have developed a school programme where the STEM subjects mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and computer science are taught in depth from grade 7 and a STEM education is an integral part of our project weeks and in the courses offered in the qualification phase. On the one hand, the diverse capacities of our teachers, on the other hand, the cooperation with universities, colleges, institutions and companies from the fields of science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEM) in Berlin and nationwide are used.

As part of our cooperation plan, beginning in the academic year 2021/22, our students will take part in the Anhalt University of Applied Sciences project "Make up your MINT". This project, with a focus on practice-oriented STEM education and applied research, helps young people, but especially girls, to get an initial insight into the STEM area (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics). By means of continuous offers, such as online courses, on-site learning laboratories or working groups and workshops, schoolchildren - supported by the project - recognize their own abilities and interests in the STEM field and gain access to the subject area STEM free of competition and pressure to succeed. Click here for the project. 

In order to improve gender diversity in computer science and related courses, we collaborated with the Starcode project for the academic year 2022/23, which offers additional programming courses for girls as part of the Mentora project weeks. Click here for the project. 

Further collaboration was established with the Institute for Chemistry of New Materials at the University of Osnabrück for the 2022/23 academic year. During our Mentora project weeks, students will be able to work with a team from the Faculty of Chemistry Didactics, in student laboratories, experience the connection between theory and practice in the subject of chemistry and explore topics from the field of "sustainability", e.g. protection of lakes, rivers and the sea, climate protection, exhaust gas scandal in a practical and experimental manner. Click here for the project.

Fine Arts

Our goal is to promote the creativity of our students and to enable them to receive an aesthetic secondary school education in the sense of holistic personality development. In addition to speaking and thinking about one's own artistic creations and those of others, this also includes dealing with works of art history and current visual imagery. At Mentora Gymnasium we want to combine the aesthetic and artistic skills of the students. In addition to imparting knowledge of art history and basic design skills, we want to encourage pupils in lower secondary school and upper secondary school to try out artistic ways of thinking and acting individually. Our school enables creative work in the classic forms of expression painting and graphics, but also in other diverse teaching projects, e.g. B. in the fields of plastic, photography and design.