Thumbs-up for EMBL’s fun activities at Haus der Jugend’s Sommerfest

Two thumbs-up and a giant grin – one child’s post-it note feedback summarises the experience of many of the families who visited EMBL’s stall at the annual Haus der Jugend Sommerfest in Heidelberg at the end of July. 

With dance shows, D.J.s, aerial acrobatics and creative workshops, the event already offered plenty to put a smile on children’s faces. And EMBL’s Science Education and Public Engagement team added to the fun with a cell cookie activity – the invitation to make rice waffle ‘cells’, with sweets representing different organelles (which are like tiny organs inside each cell). Participants used icing to stick a variety of sweets onto their cookies, variously representing the nucleus, mitochondria, Golgi apparatus and vacuoles. 

This year, the Haus der Jugend event, attended by around 1,500 children and their families, was themed around the topic ‘fly me to the moon’. The EMBL team designed a Schnitzeljagd (or treasure hunt) especially to fit with this theme, inviting intrepid explorers to take part in a space mission to discover a mysterious planet full of weird and wonderful lifeforms. 

As part of this treasure hunt, families could view microorganisms at the EMBL stall using a Curiosity microscope. Identifying the correct organism unlocked a step towards discovering which planet they were actually exploring. With other treasure stations around Haus der Jugend’s grounds leading to clues about bioluminescent plankton, headless worms, and plastic-eating microbes, many participants were surprised to discover these intriguing creatures actually live on our planet, Earth. 
Miriam Okos, from Haus der Jugend, said: “It was a great pleasure for us that EMBL participated in our Sommerfest. The team really managed to make science appealing to children in a creative and playful way.”