{"id":45486,"date":"2023-03-29T13:38:23","date_gmt":"2023-03-29T11:38:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.steinmuehle.de\/blog\/2023\/03\/29\/youth-research-student-experiments-the-best-interdisciplinary-project-in-hesse-comes-from-steinmuehle\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T17:36:36","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T15:36:36","slug":"youth-research-student-experiments-the-best-interdisciplinary-project-in-hesse-comes-from-steinmuehle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/blog\/2023\/03\/29\/youth-research-student-experiments-the-best-interdisciplinary-project-in-hesse-comes-from-steinmuehle\/","title":{"rendered":"“Youth Research\/Student Experiments”: The Best Interdisciplinary Project in Hesse Comes from Steinm\u00fchle"},"content":{"rendered":"

A great success for our very young researchers from 6th grade: By winning the regional competition in Gie\u00dfen, they qualified for the state competition and were able to travel to Kassel for two days with their advisor, Dr. Jutta T\u00f6hl-Borsdorf, to present their research project there. And they won there, too.
\n, Anna-Lena Griesler (11), Maya Fischer (11), and Marlene Wagner (12) focused on making adhesives from natural sources (as we reported), and this involved a lot of chemistry. But since the three didn\u2019t stop at just making the adhesives\u2014they also built a device to test their tensile strength\u2014engineering played a major role in this project as well. Their force measurements using digital force sensors ultimately fell within the realm of physics as well.
\nThis multifaceted approach\u2014that is, its interdisciplinary nature\u2014impressed the jury. The continuous refinement of the experimental apparatus and the depth of understanding with which they analyzed the underlying processes impressed the judges. In addition, they were praised for their confidence during the presentation and, in particular, for their strong team spirit. <\/p>\n

The depth of content is something that is also close to the heart of \u201cJugend forscht\u201d advisor Dr. Jutta T\u00f6hl-Borsdorf. \u201cThe three of them had to explain the different adhesive properties of the various materials on the paper. Since paper is made of cellulose, that\u2019s more of a topic from 12th-grade chemistry class. Natural adhesives are also rather complex molecules. But you can \u2018break it down\u2019 into simpler terms.\u201d During the jury deliberations, the team was able to impress with their expertise and technical terms such as hydrophilic and hydrophobic, hydrogen bonding, and cohesion and adhesion failures. <\/p>\n

It<\/span> was also great to see the students interacting with students from other schools. One team, for example, had been working on an adhesive made from mistletoe berries. A sample was quickly provided and measured by the girls. However, this adhesive turned out not to be suitable for everyday use just yet.
\nThe team\u2019s best adhesive consists of starch, sugar, and a little vinegar, which breaks down the starch molecules into shorter chains.
\nLast but not least, the Steinm\u00fchlen team also took home the special \u201cMaterials and Substances\u201d prize from the Institute of Materials Science at the University of Kassel. In total, this meant prize money of 300 \u20ac for the three young researchers, though Anna-Lena noted: \u201cThe money isn\u2019t really important at all. Spending those two days with like-minded people was the best part.\u201d <\/p>\n

We are very proud of you. Congratulations!
\nClick here for the University of Kassel’s press release
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A great success for our very young researchers from 6th grade: By winning the regional competition in Gie\u00dfen, they qualified for the state competition and were able to travel to Kassel for two days with their advisor, Dr. Jutta T\u00f6hl-Borsdorf, to present their research project there. And they won there, too. , Anna-Lena Griesler (11), […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":45490,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,85,105,91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-contests-awards","category-news","category-stem","category-talent-development"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45486"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49392,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45486\/revisions\/49392"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steinmuehle.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}