BioLab, a trailer school for discovering biodiversity

"The main idea of BioLab is to offer the children a practical approach to the ecosystem concept and to the role played by man in it. This inculcates a respectful nature from earliest childhood, to make them a generation conscious of a way of life that is responsible and ecological."

Volker Breit

Since 1978, the nonprofit Verein der Freunde und Förderer der IGS Mühlenberg (friends and supporters of the Mühlenberg integrated school) has been working to improve the quality of education at the IGS Mühlenberg school. It has more than 300 members today, active in various initiatives, ranging from vocational guidance for adolescents to mediating conflicts, and including art projects and even the organization of teacher training programs and the maintenance of IT equipment. Classed as an environmental school in Europe since 2010, the IGS Mühlenberg school wants to broaden its educational activities to the environment by creating a BioLab.

On the program: analyses, plantations and experiments

At the centre of the BioLab project is practical teaching, with the organization of extramural outings in an ecosystem, to carry out analyses, plantations and experiments. To facilitate the nature trip of the 500 schoolchildren who benefit from the project each year, the idea was to acquire a trailer for the installation of a BioLab. Furnished with chairs and tables, the BioLab stores gardening and experimental equipment, and serves for the regular biology courses of the school, for groups of children who meet in the afternoon, and for continuous education for biology teachers. The trailer is conveyed before the courses to its place in the wild. The children and teachers find it on site after getting there ecologically (public transport, bicycle, etc.).

The Foundation grant covers the technical equipment of the trailer.