Q.UNI – Münster Children’s and Youth University
Q.UNI is the university for children and adolescents of the University of Münster. The name ‘Q.UNI’ derives from the phonetic combination of the first letters of the words Kinder (children) and Jugend (youth). When pronounced together, the K and J fuse to become the letter Q.
Q.UNI – A forum for scientific exploration and transfer
With its commitment to sharing scientific findings with the public, the University of Münster is meeting the community’s justified expectation to participate in science. To this end, the University aims to involve civil society in its entirety. The main objective of the Q.UNI – Children’s and Youth University project is to awaken curiosity and interest in scientific phenomena and get children excited about science and research from an early age.
With an array of extracurricular learning centres and programmes, Q.UNI offers a diverse and unique programme for children of all ages, and in so doing, fulfils its mission to promote science communication. Q.UNI represents a broad spectrum of subjects from all faculties of the University of Münster. It aims to make science tangible and current research accessible so that children and adolescents can gain first-hand experience with knowledge and research processes from a fascinating perspective. The young participants are presented topics from various areas of science in a vivid, research-oriented manner and come to regard themselves as responsible researchers in their respective age group.
With theme-based and target-group-specific education programmes, Q.UNI wishes to continue developing and intensifying its transfer activities between the University’s researchers and the children and adolescents at the University and in the Münsterland region.
Q.UNI acts as an initiator and promoter of knowledge transfer for young people through attractive, extracurricular, educational activities in Münster and the Münsterland region. By participating in Q.UNI activities, the children and adolescents learn about the (scientific) world with all their senses. The activities are staged in didactically and pedagogically prepared, interdisciplinary learning environments which encourage independent problem-solving, exploration and experimentation. In other words, the programme is based on ‘learning through discovery’ in correlation to the principle of ‘learning through research’.
Q.UNI unterwegs
The ""Q.UNI unterwegs" [de]" programme comprises a series of various projects which the Q.UNI develops and organises either on its own or in cooperation with external partners. All the projects are designed to familiarise selected target groups with low-threshold themes from the broad spectrum of research activities conducted at the University of Münster. In this way, "Q.UNI unterwegs" helps promote University’s knowledge transfer efforts for children and adolescents in the Münsterland region.
