Geowindows for the partner schools of the UNESCO Global Geopark Swabian Alb

At the beginning of the year, the UNESCO Global Geopark Swabian Alb equipped its 12 partner schools with Geowindows - innovative teaching media that convey geological processes in a clear and hands-on way. At the end of January, workshops were held at two schools: the Karl-von-Frisch-Gymnasium in Dußlingen and the Hillerschule in Steinheim. Teachers from other Geopark schools also took part at both locations to get to know the possibilities of the Geowindow.

The Geowindow was designed under the leadership of Prof. Dr. C. Falk at the Institute of Geography at the PH Freiburg and further developed as part of geologist Mathias Faller's dissertation. Faller, who played a key role in the development, emphasizes the importance of activity-based teaching: “All school subjects today place value on pupils learning actively. This strengthens understanding and ensures sustainable learning.”

In the natural sciences in particular, it is essential that learning content is not just taught in theory, says Faller. “In chemistry, there's the Bunsen burner and the test tube - it bangs, it stinks, it smokes. All the senses are stimulated, and that's exactly what makes it easier to remember what you've learned. Until now, there has been no comparable model for the geosciences. We are closing this gap with the Geowindow.”

The Geowindow was born out of practical necessity: During his second degree as a primary and secondary school teacher, Faller was asked to develop an experiment to make the mechanisms of the Gulf Stream understandable in the classroom. He realised that there were no suitable models. Instructions from the Helmholtz Institute in Kiel for building a mini-aquarium gave him the idea of developing his own model. The result: a versatile teaching aid that can be used to illustrate geological processes such as the formation of mountains, volcanism or groundwater flows.

The project originally resulted from a joint development with the Ludwigsburg University of Education, on whose website a video can be seen that shows step by step how a ‘recipe’ for the geowindow is modelled using an example.

The project originally resulted from a joint development with the Ludwigsburg University of Education, on whose website a video can be seen that shows step by step how a ‘recipe’ for the geowindow is modelled.

We wish our partner schools lots of fun and new insights with the new learning tools.

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