Youth research
Plastic-eating beetle larvae, organic cosmetics made from quark: How young people want to change the world
Leo Roer, Beeke Drechsler and Malte Cox in a laboratory in Münster where they are researching plastic-eating beetle larvae
© Lars Berg/Stern
Jugend forscht is the best-known competition for young scientific talents in Germany. 175 students competed for victory in the national finals.
She owes the greatest triumph of her life so far to her hamster. His name: Elvis. His favorite food: mealworms. Every evening, Beeke Drechsler fed Elvis the larvae of the darkling beetle, better known as mealworms. And made an astonishing discovery: “The larvae nibbled off plastic from the slide in the cage, but did not excrete any microplastics.”
Beeke Drechsler was electrified. Could it be that the small larvae were the key to solving a major problem facing humanity? Namely: How can the mountains of plastic waste that we have accumulated ever be reduced? Beeke, then 14, told her best friends Malte Cox and Leo Roer about the discovery. The three students from the Wilhelm-Hittorf-Gymnasium in Münster decided to get to the bottom of the phenomenon scientifically.
Four years have passed since then. The project of curious students has become a successful research project by young adults. Beeke and Leo will soon be 18, Malte already is. In March they won the state competition Jugend forscht Nordrhein-Westfalen in the biology category. Last weekend they competed in the national finals at the Science Center Experimenta in Heilbronn and received the special prize from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research for a work on the topic of “Future-oriented technologies”.
Jugend forscht is Germany’s best-known competition for young scientific talents and was founded by star co-founded. Over 10,000 students took part in this round. They are supported by 250 companies, universities, research institutes, 5,000 teachers, the BMBF, the Dieter Schwarz Foundation and over 3,000 experts and university lecturers who critically examine the research projects. “The best thing is that you talk to professors on the juries on an equal footing and that you are taken seriously,” says Anna Maria Weiß. The 18-year-old is fascinated by astrophysics. She has proven the existence of a new exoplanet and was able to show that TOI1147b is a “hot Jupiter”, a non-inhabitable planet similar in size to Jupiter but significantly hotter.
Anna Maria Weiß from Neuenhagen near Berlin proved the existence of an exoplanet
© Max Lautenschläger/Youth Research Foundation
In this country, a lot is said about young people, but little with them. And when we do, it is with great concern. How are they supposed to solve all the problems that we leave behind for them, from the climate crisis to the weak growth of the German economy? Katarina Keck, Executive Director of the Jugend forscht Foundation, math teacher and former head of the Albert Schweitzer Gymnasium in Erlangen, is optimistic: “If you see twelve-year-olds presenting their photovoltaic-powered seawater desalination plant with shining eyes, and doing it better than many adults, then you don’t have to worry about Germany’s future.”
At Jugend forscht theory and practice are trained
Jugend forscht is a diverse competition, elitist and egalitarian in equal measure. Basically any school student in Germany can take part. Many of the winners have since gone on to have careers in science. But it is not just the future top researchers who give Katarina Keck courage. She also thinks of participants like the two girls who had it in their heads to make organic cosmetics from curd: “It wasn’t rocket science, but the methodology was really sound, and they pulled it off.”
And that is what really counts: implementation. This is where things often go wrong in Germany. Innovation research refers to the “German paradox”. “Universities are doing great basic research in many areas, but the developments often do not reach the stage of application,” says Katharina Hölzle, professor at the University of Stuttgart and director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering and Organization. The developments starve in the so-called “death zone” between the proof in principle in the laboratory that an innovative idea works and series production.
Leo Blume from Essen developed sorting algorithms by color
© Lars Berg/Stern
At Jugend forscht, both theory and practice are trained, rocket science and at least the construction of prototypes. For example, Leo Blume, a student from Essen, has even brought his project – a multi-dimensional sorting algorithm – to the stage of application. “The code is published on the Internet, anyone who is interested can use it,” says the 16-year-old. Leo originally came to sorting algorithms when he asked himself how he could best arrange his books on the shelf by color. That sounds banal, but color sorting methods are among the most difficult problems in computer science. In practice, these methods are used in many different ways, for example to efficiently plan the flow of goods in global logistics companies. At the national finals, Leo received the Konrad Zuse Society Prize for an original work in the field of computer science.
The questions that drive these talented researchers don’t let go of them so quickly. Sometimes they even give their lives a new direction. Beeke Drechsler and Malte Cox didn’t actually see their strengths in the natural sciences. Beeke had chosen German and history as advanced courses, Malte German and social sciences. “We taught ourselves the chemical and bioanalytical basics for our project,” says Beeke. They were allowed to use laboratories at the University of Münster and discovered that special intestinal microbes in mealworms are responsible for breaking down plastic. Beeke finds this so exciting that she now wants to study biology. “We’ve now got to the point where we can grow the bacteria outside the larvae and the plastic can be broken down in a Petri dish.”
Perhaps the secret of the success of Jugend forscht is that the questions of children and young people are heard and they are given time to find the answers. Regardless of whether it is about mealworms, the optimal sorting of colors or the question of whether life is possible on a planet outside our solar system.