Concept, Goals & Values
What are the MINT-Impulse?
The project MINT-Impulse an der Schule picks up on current and exciting STEM topics at TUM. Various chairs develop mobile workshops in which a lot of practical work is done. TUM instructors bring these workshops to schools in Upper Bavaria, Lower Bavaria, Swabia and the Upper Palatinate as MINT-Impulse. Together with the instructors, girls in small groups tinker, construct and discuss for a whole day. The target group is girls in grades 8-10 and later also in grades 6-7. The program is aimed at secondary schools and grammar schools in rural areas.
What are the goals of MINT-Impulse?
The MINT-Impulse school projects enable students of an entire grade to tinker and experiment in small groups without pressure to perform, and to deal with a current topic from the STEM field in a very practical way for a whole school day of six hours.
Parents often have to overcome certain hurdles to allow female students to participate in extracurricular STEM opportunities, such as finding opportunities, the logistics of getting there, or paying fees. This may put female students whose families find it difficult to overcome these hurdles at a disadvantage.
The MINT-Impulse projects are therefore aimed at all girls in the entire grade level. Participation is free of charge.
Trying things out and tinkering is a particularly good way to awaken interest and enthusiasm for a topic. Once the interest is there, the girls can pursue it in follow-up offerings, for example TUM Entdeckerinnen: MINT Erlenmos am der Uni or other extracurricular STEM offerings in the region.
MINT-Impulse aims to support female students in discovering, testing and further developing a new view of their own abilities in the fields of mathematics, computer science, natural sciences and technology. In this way, girls' self-confidence in these very skills can be strengthened.
During the MINT-Impulse school projects, female students have the opportunity to break down stereotypes in two ways:
- In their project leaders, the schoolgirls get to know young women who have chosen courses of study and careers in fields that are often attributed to males.
- The girls can try out areas they might not have come into contact with themselves, for example due to conventional socialization or overly critical self-assessment, without any pressure to perform.