The Hollenberg-Gymnasium Waldbröl focuses not only on a sound linguistic education but also on the MINT subjects. In the Astronomy Department, there have been occasional internships at DLR for students of our school.
The project of the observatory in Schnörringen is therefore an excellent opportunity to gain a very special extracurricular place of learning and above all to support the subject of physics in a special way.
- First an astronomy club was founded! For students of all ages, there were observation evenings at which we tried to put the theoretical findings into practice. A special experience for students was to align the secondary telescope of the STScI as exactly as possible to the celestial north pole in order to enable an optimal tracking of the telescope.
- The positive response of the working group led to the establishment of the subject “Astronomy Physics” in the field of intermediate level differentiation since the school year 2018/19. Eleven students are currently working on astronomical topics in two to three hours per week in this first course. A special focus is also placed on the practical application of the acquired competences. In addition to the basics of astronomy, the students also have the opportunity to put theory into practice, e.g. during solar observation, or to get to know the working steps in this exciting field in a “basic course in astrophotography”. What is special about this course is the rare combination of theory and practice, which tries to make “astronomy as an opera of the natural sciences” tangible.
