Leibniz Universität Hannover Faculty Faculty of Natural Sciences
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Institute of Science Education
 
Institute of Science Education Research
Research projects

Research Projects

Recent research projects

  • #FREI DAY FOR FUTURE – Shaping healthy and sustainable living environments together
    The research project of three years focuses on the FREI DAY learning format at schools in Lower Saxony, whose impact on sustainable and healthy lifestyles and living conditions is being investigated. FREI DAY usually involves four lessons per week in which pupils develop their own projects on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in small groups over the course of a school year, implementing them in their local community. The aim for young people is to acquire the skills they need to create healthy, fair and sustainable living conditions and lifestyles and to experience self-efficacy. The evaluation uses a mixed methods approach which will be carried out at the participating elementary schools as well as secondary and vocational schools. Some schools have already implemented the FREI DAY, some do not take part (yet). For the effectiveness of the evaluation, around 10 key persons per FREI DAY school and one or more class levels are interviewed by telephone as part of the quantitative surveys. Qualitative surveys (focus groups, photovoice, Most Significant Change) will be conducted at selected schools that are already implementing FREI DAY. The project is being implemented in close collaboration with a team at Hannover Medical School (MHH) and coordinated by Prof. Dr. Ulla Walter from the Institute for Epidemiology, Social Medicine and Health Systems Research. The research team at the IDN at LUH is responsible for implementing the qualitative surveys.
    Led by: Prof. Dr. Christiane Meyer
    Team: Jacqueline Kittel, Alicia Strauß
    Year: 2025
    Funding: Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)
    Duration: 02/2025 - 01/2028
  • Societal Transformation in a Digital Society – Raising Awareness for the Participation in a Sustainable and Inclusive Mobility Transition
    This project is a cooperation between the Institute for Science Education and the Institute of Economic and Cultural Geography. The sub-project at IDN will consider with multipliers in the education sector and with young people how a development and use of mobility apps can be realised in an inclusive and sustainable way.
    Led by: Prof. Dr. Christiane Meyer (IDN) and Dr. Kerstin Schäfer (Institut für Wirtschafts- und Kulturgeographie)
    Team: Jonas Koch (IDN), Tomke van Hove (IDN) and Dmitry Boyko (IWKG)
    Year: 2021
    Funding: Ministry for Science and Culture of Lower Saxony (MWK)
    Duration: 2021-2024
  • VirtU-net Chemistry – Platform for virtual classroom observations
    VirtU-net Chemistry focuses on the connection of the first and second phase of teacher education through the use of classroom video recordings. The platform allows to integrate real teaching situations with a more theory-based perspective into the courses at university and use the same recordings with the more practice-oriented perspective in pre-service teacher education seminars. This common basis facilitates a transfer of theory into practice, since it refers to an already familiar situation. The video recordings contain generic, as well as subject-specific aspects of teaching. The tasks for the video recordings are built on a common model for evaluations of instructional quality. This common basis allows a steady transition between the phases with a continuous increase in practice orientation.
    Led by: Prof. Dr. Andreas Nehring
    Year: 2021
    Duration: 2021-2023
  • Low-Emission-Schools in Northern Germany (LESSCO2)
    This research project, which takes place over the course of three years in Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein, is being conducted by Leibniz University’s Institute for Science Education (IDN) along with Kiel University’s (CAU) Geographical Institute and the Institut für Vernetztes Denken Bredeneek (IfVD Bredeneek). It is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) within the framework of the National Climate Initiative (NKI). In line with Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and its Whole-School-Approach, the project aims to transfer knowledge about sustainability into everyday sustainable actions by implementing project weeks in northern German schools. Connecting practical experiences to key ESD issues and fostering democracy education is expected to support the development of low-emission-schools. To enable teacher candidates to implement the respective project weeks, blended learning-training modules are developed, tested and optimised. Within the project’s duration, 480 teacher candidates are supposed to implement 240 project weeks in 240 schools (grade 8 - 11) in Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein.
    Led by: Prof. Dr. Christiane Meyer
    Team: Merle Biermann, Lara Brede
    Year: 2021
    Funding: Nationale Klimaschutzinitiative (NKI) des Bundesministeriums für Wirtschaft und Klimaschutz
    Duration: 2021 - 07/2025
  • Leibniz Prinzip II – field of action 2: Modern Formats of Learning - digital, reflective, didactically structured/teaching methodology structured
    High-quality teaching focuses on the individual learning requirements of students and integrates digitally supported elements. The aim of this field of action is to promote digital competences for the reflection and design of student-oriented learning spaces among prospective teachers. To this end, teaching and learning spaces appropriate for the target group are digitally designed and supported in the university phase of teacher training.
    Led by: Prof. Dr. Sascha Schanze
    Team: Robert von der Heide
    Year: 2019
    Funding: BMBF
    Duration: 2019-2024
  • Perception and Interpretation of instructional quality in different stages of pre-service teacher education
    In this PhD project, the perception and interpretation of instructional quality is researched with a special focus on the second phase of teacher education. For this purpose, the "science education perspectives" (SEP) framework was developed as a common basis of instructional quality. In the next step, a coding manual was derived from the SEP framework for the analysis of evaluations of instructional quality. The analyses show both similarities and differences in the evaluation by science pre-service teachers and their advisors. We highlighted existing problems in evaluations of instructional quality and offer possible solutions for improving teacher education in general. Especially, "cognitive activation" poses a significant challenge for pre-service teachers due to its difficult accessibility in evaluations.
    Led by: Prof. Dr. Andreas Nehring
    Team: Benjamin Heinitz
    Year: 2019
    Duration: 2019-2023
  • KompE – Assessing and Fostering Competencies in the Field of Experimentation
    This PhD project aims to investigate how problem solutions emerge from underlying dispositions when undergraduate students engage in scientific inquiry through experimentation. For this purpose, a learning sequence including several instruments to assess different facets of the competencies in the field of experimentation is developed and implemented at the university.
    Led by: Prof. Dr. Andreas Nehring
    Team: Marco Reith
    Year: 2019
    Duration: 2019-2023

Completed research projects

Last Change: 07.02.25; Magnus Adler Print

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