American Corner Innsbruck
12. Aktionstag Junge Uni
Friday, November 7, 8 am – 2 pm
University of Innsbruck, main campus (Innrain 52)
Once again, the University of Innsbruck opened its doors to young people between the ages of 10 and 18 in order to spark their enthusiasm for different fields of study and interest. More than 30 university departments as well as other institutions affiliated with the university took part and prepared a variety of hands-on activities and tasks to provide the children with insight into their area of expertise, making it possible to explore science and academics in a playful way. 2500 students between the age of 6 and 14 were signed up for the event by their teachers. How many of them stopped by the joint booth that day is hard to tell.
The American Corner Innsbruck partnered with the university’s Centers for Area Studies for Canadian studies, Russian studies, Italian studies, French studies and Inter-American studies and set up a booth focusing on the topic of world records. We prepared two different quizzes about world records, one for the younger ones and one with more difficult questions and tasks for high school students. All the answers could be found on the double-sided poster boards that we had designed, and at times there were so many excited children trying to be the first to find the solutions that we had to support the display boards manually. As it turns out, the USA-based question about the world’s highest rollercoaster (“Kingda Ka“ at Six Flags New Jersey) seemed to be the most difficult one, as many of the quiz takers confused it with the fastest or the longest rollercoaster on the first try.
However, the quiz wasn’t the only thing we had to offer our world-record-hungry visitors: We also encouraged the children to recreate two famous world records. On one part of our booth, we let them try how many eggs they could hold in one hand (luckily, we were smart enough to use plastic eggs!) and compare themselves with current record holders Zachary George from the USA and Suresh Joachim from Canada, who both managed to hold 24 eggs in one hand within 30 seconds. We were amazed at how some of the “contestants“ actually proved quite apt and one boy even managed to hold up to 17 eggs in one hand. On the other part of our booth, we let the children compete with Silvio Sabba from Italy, who built a three-level house of cards within just 6.80 seconds.
Of course, we also had some small prizes for our ambitious young world record experts. They could choose between sweets and other little gadgets such as balloons, pins and puzzles. Out of all these, what proved extremely popular in the end were our Austro-American friendship pins. We hope to participate in this great event again next year.
