Outreach Events

Summer time is a special time of the year at EMBL! Every year in July EMBL hosts a visit by students from the International Summer Science School Heidelberg (ISH). In 2010 it was already the 14th edition of this very successful programme, organised by the city of Heidelberg and inspired by the summer school programme of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.

The city of Heidelberg invites a group of around 16-18 pre-college students from Heidelberg's twin towns (Bautzen, Cambridge, Jablonec, Kumamoto, Montpellier, Rehovot and Simferopol) to experience an one-month research training at various distinguished scientific institutions in Heidelberg. As the students possess diverse backgrounds, the first week of the programme is aimed at providing a common scientific ground before they move on to their practical placements. In addition, the programme gives the students the possibility to discover the Heidelberg area and get insights into its history and culture, through different tours and activities.

This year,  the group was joined by students from Australia and the US for the first time. The Australian students came through a collaboration with the National Youth Science Forum (NYSF) which is a similar initiative in Australia.

As in previous years, the  EMBL offered a 3-days workshop for the whole group as part of the introductory week. The core ISH group was joined by a group of 4 local Heidelberg students. This year, the "locals" came from the Helmholtz Gymnasium, the Hölderlin-Gymnasium, the Englisches Institut and the Marie-Baum-Schule Heidelberg. Two more students from Rheinland-Pfalz – both winners in the German "Jugend Forscht" contest –  also joined the ISH group for the visit to EMBL.

As in previous visits, ELLS designed a multidisciplinary programme that would potentially please students who aim to follow careers in diverse scientific areas (biology, physics or chemistry). This year, the programme was built around modules focusing on techniques in molecular biology, bioinformatics, developmental biology, biophysics and gene expression analysis. The modules included scientific seminars by EMBL scientists, tours to related EMBL facilities, hands-on experiments and didactic games. The 2010 ISH group was very dynamic and they used the opportunity to ask many questions to the EMBL scientists.

After performing lab activities and visits to EMBL facilities, the students received a presentation skills primer and were asked to prepare scientific presentations illustrating what they had experienced during their time at EMBL. The resulting seminars were presented to the peer students in a very creative manner and it was obvious that  the ISH students enjoyed their time at Europe's flagship laboratory for the life sciences.

Before the students left the EMBL they were given the opportunity to ask their questions to a careers panel involving EMBL scientists from different areas of research and at different stages of their careers. On top of that, the scientist's origins matched the nationalities of the ISH participants. The lively discussion on various aspects of scientific life and on career perspectives went on as everyone involved in the programme joined for a final ice-cream and soft drinks gathering.

ELLS Education Officer Dr. Philipp Gebhardt who organized and supervised the 3-days programme at EMBL enjoyed very much interacting with the group and guiding them through the different activities.

We are looking forward to the next edition of the International Summer Science School Heidelberg in 2011!

Official website of the International Summer Science School Heidelberg