On 9 March 2026, the coolMINT.paderborn school laboratory in Osnabrück was awarded second place in the "Mobile offers" category at the 21st annual LernortLabor conference. The prize, donated by the Dr. Hans Riegel Foundation, honours the outstanding "MINT 4.OWL" project, which was created as part of the BMBFJS's MINT Cluster funding. The aim: to reach young people in East Westphalia-Lippe, especially in rural regions, with innovative STEM offers directly on site.
The coolMINT student laboratory brings future technologies directly to youth centres, libraries and other extracurricular learning locations throughout Ostwestfalen-Lippe (OWL) - regardless of where they live. Over 80 new learning centres, 468 workshops and almost 6,000 young people reached demonstrate the success of the project. Topics such as digitalisation and Industry 4.0 combined with explorative learning make STEM tangible for young people, regardless of their previous experience.
The Department of Technology Didactics at the Institute of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology is in charge of the coolMINT.paderborn school lab and is responsible for the didactic concept and the continuous development of the programmes on offer. STEM content is prepared in a way that is appropriate for the target group and sustainable learning processes are promoted through action-orientated and real-world learning formats.
Close cooperation with regional partners and the training of multipliers ensure that the programmes on offer remain anchored in the region in the long term. As the laudatory speech emphasises: "STEM is not only understood as a field of learning at school, but is consciously carried into young people's free time - where they meet anyway."
You can find out more about the coolMINT.paderborn project and on offers here.
