November 13 is National Future Day! Each year, children throughout Switzerland join their parents, relatives or a specially offered program for a half or full day to experience what their professional future could look like.
At the University of Bern, the Center for Space and Habitability (CSH) and Space Research and Planetary Science Division (WP) offer an exciting half-day program for interested children between 10 and 12 years old. This year, we were able to welcome two groups throughout the day and showcase what Bern has to offer for future space researchers, engineers and polymechanics.
Both groups were introduced to Bernese space research by Dr. Timm-Emanuel Riesen, director of the Stellarium Gornergrat and science outreach expert at CSH. He presented the previous achievements and future highlights of Bern’s activities in space and answered very insightful questions by our young visitors.
Afterwards, the children took a tour through our great laboratory and experienced the shaker, learning about how we develop, build and test high-tech instruments which fly to space with rockets and probes, directly from test engineers Thierry de Roche and Vincent Dor. From space engineer Martin Rieder they were able to learn about 3D modelling and the use of different materials in the development of instruments and spacecraft.
Together with our polymechanics apprentices, the children then got to create their own soldering project—a beetle capable of producing sound and light! Mentored by the polymechanics, each child learned how to solder with tin, attach a small solar panel to a light and speaker, and put everything together to create a small metal beetle.
For this year’s Future Day, we participated in the official campaign “Nationaler Zukunftstag” and offered a girls-only program in the afternoon. In the morning, we welcomed a mixed group of children as well. In total, we were able to excite 34 girls and 14 boys for a future in space science.
