Schools

WACKER wants children and young people to be excited about technology and the natural sciences. After all, as a chemical company, we are going to need outstanding scientists in the future – a goal we are pursuing in a variety of ways.

WACKER supports progressive teaching methods and modern school management systems. Our Group is one of the founding members of the Bavarian Educational Pact (German-language version only), a foundation comprising 143 companies that has joined the state of Bavaria in sponsoring various projects at public schools. The aim of all of these projects is to modernize the Bavarian educational system.

Award for Experiment Kit

Examine, experiment, explore − and acquire a critical educational foundation in the process. WACKER’s experiment kit for schools, CHEM₂DO^®, fulfills this criterion. Designed for junior and senior high school students, the kit contains eight experiments involving silicones and cyclodextrins. Chemistry teachers who want to do the experiments in class receive training at teacher-training centers run throughout Germany by the Society of German Chemists and at select universities. The kit is supplied to schools free of charge. WACKER hopes that the kit will spark an interest in chemistry among young people and provide chemistry teachers with teaching aids featuring innovative materials. In 2015, WACKER launched a new version of the experiment kit. We have taken the teachers’ feedback into account for the revised edition – with many elements now being even better tailored to students and school laboratories.

Germany’s federal SCHULEWIRTSCHAFT association (German-language version only) awarded Wacker Chemie AG the first prize for CHEM₂DO^® in the 2015 SCHULEWIRTSCHAFT “That Has Potential!” competition in the “Beginners – Large Companies” category. Every year, the nationwide SCHULEWIRTSCHAFT network has honored businesses, schools and publishers who demonstrate exemplary commitment to vocational guidance and the transition from school to working life.

2016 saw us take the helm as statewide sponsor and organizer of the Young Scientists Competition in Bavaria (German-language version only) for the tenth time. We also again sponsored the Dresden/East Saxony Young Scientists Regional Competition (German-language version only). In 1998, WACKER began its involvement in Europe’s largest competition for young people in the natural sciences, mathematics and technology.

All WACKER sites help young people prepare for a profession. At career days and student workshops, our employees introduce high-school students to jobs in the chemical industry and teach them practical skills. The following are a few examples from the period under review:

• In 2016, our new US production site in Charleston, Tennessee, launched a partnership with Bradley Central High School in Cleveland. The aim of the cooperative effort is to advance scientific and technical education programs and to help students explore career options.
• WACKER HELP is a philanthropic initiative that supports school-age children in remote areas of China by offering hot, free lunches every day, by setting up school libraries, and by providing grants for teachers and fresh paint for building exteriors. Since it was founded in 2005, WACKER HELP has donated to 17 school libraries and a music room, and with aid from the WACKER relief fund, rebuilt the elementary school in Fujia in the province of Sichuan, after it was destroyed in the massive 2008 earthquake.
• WACKER’s Burghausen Vocational Training Center (BBiW) (German-language version only) and SchlaU (German-language version only), a Munich education initiative focusing on refugees, began working together in 2016. The collaboration aims to help young refugees living in Bavaria’s Altötting district (home to our Burghausen site) learn German, and to find them suitable training places. In this effort, WACKER is funding the SchlaU initiative with a sum of €200,000 over six years. The BBiW, supported by SchlaU, launched a career orientation week for young refugees, which was attended by 18 adolescents.