Exciting excursions, interdisciplinary talks and project work with a group of international students sounds like your kind of summer? Then join us for 2025 GO Wasser, our Summer School in Mainz and Ahrweiler and learn all about the connection between water and climate change. Together with students from Latvian, Irish, and Scottish universities you will have the chance to practice your English and explore more about water´s impact on the environment.

The Summer School will take place from 16 June until 29 June 2025 and includes a week of interdisciplinary lectures on JGU campus and an excursion to Ahrweiler in our second project week. The project will end with the Scotland HUB’s big Scot-t Fest, a cultural festival about all things Scotland!

includes a week of interdisciplinary academic talks about the connection between “Wasser” (water) and climate change at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and a second week of collaborative project work with students from schools in Ahrweiler. The project will end with the Scot-t Fest during which you will have the opportunity to showcase your individual group projects.

The project´s main language will be English, so all students can apply, whether they know German nor not. However, you will have many chances to speak and thus practice your German if you want.

For your participation you can earn 3 ECTS and a Global Citizenship Award!

Virtual meetings prior to the mobility phase:
Wednesday, 23 April 2025: 1^st meeting
Wednesday, 7 May 2025: 2^nd meeting
Wednesday, 21 May 2025: 3^rd meeting

Monday, 2 June 2025 – Friday, 13 June 2024: German Language Course (JGU Mainz – free & optional)

Sunday, 15 June 2025 – Sunday, 22 June 2025: Academic week (JGU Mainz)
Sunday, 22 June 2025 – Thursday, 26 June 2025: Project work (Ahrtal)
Thursday, 26 June 2025 – Sunday, 29 June 2025: Scot-t fest (JGU Mainz)

For international students, the participation fee is expected to be about 300 € at most. We will keep the fee as low as possible, but the exact amount is ultimately determined by the number of participants and the resulting costs during our project. The fee covers the language course, lectures at JGU, a cultural programme in Mainz and Ahrweiler, as well as accommodation (starting Sunday, 15 June) and travel during the two weeks of the project.

Please note that travel to and from Mainz as well as accommodation in Mainz during the optional language course is not covered by the project fee and must be organised and paid for by the participants themselves!

Of course, we will support you in finding affordable accommodation.

The payment of the project fee will be split into two instalments. The first payment of 100 € is expected in advance to confirm your participation, while the second one will be due after the completion of the project (we will also ask you to get the “Deutschlandticket” for the month of June for unlimited travel with public transport – the cost for this is already calculated into the expected fee).

For JGU students, the participation fee is 45 € and includes lectures at JGU, a cultural programme in Mainz and Ahrweiler, as well travel during the two weeks of the project and accommodation in Ahrweiler.

We highly recommend checking with your university’s international office for possible funding for your participation in the summer school. For participants from the EU (Ireland and Latvia) this will likely be an Erasmus+ funding (Blended Intensive Programme). In the UK, you might be able to get funded via the Turing Scheme. Please note that the Turing Scheme only funds mobilities longer than four weeks. That means that a participation in the language course is required to receive Turing funding.

If you have any questions about your participation in or application for 2025 GO Wasser, please join our “GO Wasser Q&A” on Tuesday, 4 February 2025 on MS-Teams

In case you have any questions and can´t make it on 4 February, please contact us via scothub@uni.mainz.de.

Please apply until Monday, 17 February 2025 using the form available here and send it to us via scothub@uni-mainz.de.

>>If you would like to print out Information

Forests cover about 30 per cent of the Earth’s land surface and they are essential for our fight against climate change. Since 2000, each year forests are estimated to have removed an average of 2 billion metric tons of carbon from the atmosphere.

However, forests are also heavily affected by climate change. Extreme storms, droughts and wildfires are going from bad to worse, breaking records with ever alarming frequency. This is leading to deforestation, loss of wild life and the destruction of CO2 reservoirs. A forest is not only a natural space, but also part of our identity, culture and literature.

We are going to examine this with experts from many different disciplines at JGU Mainz in our first week and will then provide an opportunity to explore the biosphere of the Pfälzerwald and see the effects of climate change in our National Park.

The UN has set goals for sustainable development, that address global challenges that our world faces today. Any change in climate change is likely to put additional stress on an already fragile equilibrium.

A Fearful Hope: Imagining a blueprint for a sustainable future is a virtual exchange project led by academics and industry experts from JGU Mainz and the University of Glasgow. This collaborative, intercultural and interdisciplinary project will ask you to form groups and investigate the last world-wide major climate change incident – the 1815 volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia. In your groups, you will explore the impact of the Tambora eruption on nature and people with a view to imagine how we would respond today. As part of this response, you will choose your area of interest and evaluate how societies, faith communities, governments and the scientific community responded to these incidents whilst exploring the narrative used to explain/manage the incident in the context of how we would respond today.

In this virtual exchange course, you will learn how intercultural competencies such as tolerance, empathy, effective communication, and collaboration can strengthen your understanding and prepare you for being a global citizen.

The collaboration between JGU Mainz and University of Glasgow ensures that the course and its activities create an opportunity for you to work within multicultural and multidisciplinary groups. The group work will allow you to demonstrate effective intercultural competencies and encourage you to develop intercultural relationships and networks, as well as reflect on your own culture and cultural identity. It will offer you foundational experience and lifelong learning tools that enable you to respond to intercultural and emotionally challenging situations and cooperate with people across borders, whether physically or online.

The project work will present opportunities to develop workplace behaviours such as effective communication, teamwork, presentation skills and articulate and communicate complex facts in a simple relatable way.

You will be required to work within multi-cultural, multi-disciplinary groups to develop a thorough understanding of varied topics such as:

• Climate issues
• Historical significance
• Geographical challenges
• Government responses
• Business / Economy / technological response
• Societal and cultural influences
• Linguistics and the democratisation of scientific words
• Imagery and Media
• The potency of storytelling; Oral vs Written word

Teaching starts: June 2020 (online)
Time commitment: 4 hours per week for 8 weeks
Project exhibition: November 2021, Glasgow
Credentials: Global Citizen Award (awarded by JGU Mainz GET across borders programme and added to your HEAR statement)

The course combines self-reflection and active learning using materials delivered via presentations, videos, academic articles, case studies and a range of practical activities. Participants will interact with each other in small groups and with the course tutors, industry experts and guest speakers on a weekly basis, via online discussion forums and live online sessions. Activities addressing knowledge, awareness, attitudes, and skills will be allocated across 8 weeks.

Assessment

The course includes regular assessments throughout, in the form of short reflective and reflexive exercises to assess your skill development and intercultural awareness.

It will also include one final group assignment which is submitted one week after the end of the course and exhibited in Glasgow in November as part of COP26 (permission to travel dependent). Each group must choose one of the 12 projects outlined with a focus on the scientific and historical evidence of the Tamora volcanic eruption. The presentation will be an interactive and engaging communication piece that explore the narratives used to explain or manage this incident with the purpose of informing or creating behavioural or cognitive change.

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Identify, understand, and demonstrate effective workplace behaviours, such as effective communication, teamwork, and presentation skills
• demonstrate complex decision-making skills involving multiple stakeholders
• articulate and communicate complex facts and concepts in a simple relatable way
• gain an understanding of how to make better decisions and initiate complex change by utilising their team’s diversity and resources
• develop intercultural competencies by collaborating with a wide range of people
• develop interdisciplinary competencies by collaborating with students from different disciplines
• develop a sense of global citizenship and contribute to their community or organisation
• reflect on their own culture and develop strategies to confidently work with other cultures/generations/ backgrounds and beliefs/professional sectors
• understand the value of diversity to innovate and build resilience in the workplace.

How to apply

Please complete the application form before 20 May 2021, 12:00 (noon). The application will be organised by the University of Glasgow.

This course will give you the opportunity to develop and demonstrate transferable skills and competencies that are considered desirable by most employers. This project will provide numerous occasions where you can:

• work with people across different cultures and disciplines, building trust and demonstrating respect for different cultures
• work independently demonstrating your ability to organise and manage your own work
• research and think creatively, demonstrating your ability to critically analyse data and find solutions
• develop effective communication skills, and demonstrate you can work with others

Employers continue to emphasise the need for graduates to have transferable skills, and the ability to demonstrate these skills through project work can improve your employability.

Current enrolment in a Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz Undergraduate or Postgraduate degree will satisfy entry.Technical requirements

• Access to Moodle
• Access to Microsoft Teams
• Access to Zoom Meetings

University of Glasgow students will be registered as JGU Mainz students for the duration of the project and will access project content via JGU Mainz Moodle.