Review: SFB 1313 TryScience Workshop

The SFB 1313 TryScience Workshop „Climate Change: Droughts and Salinization“ took place on 3 November 2022. SFB 1313 principal investigator Sander Huisman from the Forschungszentrum Jülich, SFB 1313 doctoral researcher Stefanie Kiemle from the Department of Hydromechanics and Modelling of Hydrosystems (LH²) and their team welcomed 8 pupils from different schools (9^th to 13^th grade). They gave a first impression on the topic of climate change and the problem of droughts and water shortage in Germany and salinization on the international level. They presented the Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 1313 and explained why these topics are interesting for porous media researchers.

Two "Environmental Engineering" and "Simulation Technology" students gave then insights into their study programs, explained the study content and answered questions regarding a possible career outlook.

The pupils experimented together with the workshop team with the porous medium sand and constructed their own set-up. They filled sand into a measuring cup to the 50 ml mark and calculated the dry density and the porosity of the sand volume. Afterwards they saturated their sand set-up with water (flow in porous media) and identified the total sand volume and the water volume. Afterwards they also observed two different sand types (coarse and fine sand) saturated with water and could see if there was a difference concerning the porosity.

At the end of the workshop, Sander Huisman showed the pupils non-invasive experimental methods to investigate the natural underground, and Stefanie Kiemle explained her work as a doctoral researcher within SFB 1313. She showed how the combination of experiments and simulations both contribute to make invisible processes visible and thus better understandable. She explained how the environmental problem of salinization can be illustrated in a numerical model and the mathematical equation behind the process.

The workshop was real fun and the pupils made the impression that they liked it, too. Thank you very much to all of the workshop givers and helpers to make it a success!

The TryScience workshops of the University of Stuttgart offer the possibility to get to know various courses of study and research areas. Students of the higher high school grades can experience first-hand how exciting STEM studies can be. Numerous institutes open their doors so that students get an idea what they could eventually study after their degrees.