August 13, 2007

Merely the Nails Caused Minor Trouble

By Anja Graf

How does the local water supply work? Such a thing, which at first sounded pretty complicated for the students of Ingelfingen elementary school, soon became much clearer thanks to demonstrative models and experiments in class. Two of their teachers agreed to attend to this project and worked on it with the kids during the final two weeks of the school year. The highlight was a two-day practice project at Bürkert. Here the students' task was to replicate a realistic model of the water supply with the help of the Bürkert apprentices.

Using Styrofoam, wooden sticks and small water pipes their job was to build a populated hill with a water tower at its top. In the end the goal was to enable water flowing from the top water tower through the different houses all the way down to the retention basin. So much for the theory. In practice this meant crafting, painting, gluing, and tons of fun. A total of 21 children were divided into 6 groups, each one with an apprentice at their side supporting them with help and advice.

Yet whoever might have thought that it would be more likely the boys taking over the nailing and sawing jobs, while the girls would fervently attend to decorating the houses, was wrong. In one corner, one little girl was spot-on banging a nail into the wood while beside her two other little ladies were meticulously cuting a wooden board. 8-year old Nadine Renner was brimming with enthusiasm: "The project is so much fun. Before, water supply as a topic didn't really mean much to me, but after the past weeks that has changed." Were there any problems at all during construction? "The nails partly produced some cracks in the wood, but other than that everything works well. And the apprentices are a lot of help, too", she said.

 

Source: Hohenloher Zeitung