Sustainability Report 2019/2020

Creating tomorrow’s solutions

Schools

Education is a key challenge of our digital and globalized world. WACKER wants children and young people to be excited about technology and the natural sciences. We are pursuing various ways of fostering progressive teaching methods and modern school management.

WACKER is one of the founding members of the Bavarian Educational Pact (website available in German only). Since its establishment 20 years ago, the foundation offers partners from politics, society at large, and educational authorities the opportunity of together taking an innovative approach to developing education in Bavaria. This helps prepare young people more effectively for the challenges of the future.

Studying Chemistry with Our Experiment Kit

Examine, experiment, explore and acquire a critical educational foundation in the process – WACKER’s experiment kit for schools, CHEM2DO® (website available in German only), fulfills this criterion. We hope that the kit will spark an interest in chemistry among young people and provide chemistry teachers with teaching aids featuring innovative materials. Practical and accompanied by animations, CHEM2DO® allows junior and senior high school students in Germany and Austria to carry out experiments involving silicones and cyclodextrins. We supply the kit to schools free of charge. Chemistry teachers who do our experiments in class receive training at teacher-training centers run throughout Germany by the Society of German Chemists and at select universities. In 2020, the number of teachers in Germany and Austria trained in CHEM2DO® reached 2,700.

Since the pandemic forced children to be given online lessons at home, we supported online chemistry teaching with new silicone and cyclodextrin animations (webpage available in German only). The learning resources complement the eight CHEM2DO® experiments by depicting the chemical reactions on a molecular level.

In 2020, we acted as sponsor of the state-wide Young Scientists competition in Bavaria (website available in German only) for the twelfth time. Unfortunately, it had to be canceled due to the pandemic. We also again sponsored the Dresden/East Saxony Young Scientists Regional Competition (website available in German only). WACKER first got involved in Europe’s largest competition for young people in the natural sciences, mathematics and technology in 1998.

Insights into Training and Work Experience

WACKER helps young people prepare for a profession. At career days and student workshops, employees at our international sites introduce high-school students to jobs in the chemical industry and teach them practical skills. With its Donate to Educate initiative, Wacker Metroark Chemicals (WMC), supports schools in India, for example.

Due to the pandemic, the annual Career Information Day at WACKER’s Burghausen Vocational Training Center (BBiW; website available in German only) was livestreamed in 2020. During the reporting period, we intensified our digital presence by attending virtual education tradeshows, where we informed school graduates about our training programs. On Girls’ Day (website available in German only), which is held Germany-wide, we offer high-school-age girls insights into our training program (webpage available in German only), particularly for technical occupations. Due to the pandemic, this career orientation day could not take place in 2020.

As part of the “Course 21” practical week (website available in German only), our Nünchritz site offers seventh graders of the local high school insights into a typical workday at WACKER. Together with the VCI’s Northeast regional association, we promote schools in the region as part of the “Pro Chemistry Teaching” campaign (website available in German only). We support the “Chemkids” experimental competition (website available in German only) in Saxony, which aims to spark an interest in science in fourth to eight grade school children.

We donate to the “Class Mentor” project with which the Burghausen-Altötting district association of the Kinderschutzbund (German Child Protection Agency) supports children at elementary schools and schools for children with special needs in Burghausen. It employs such tools as learning coaching, dyslexia therapy and language development to, in particular, help children with learning disabilities or from a migrant background. We support the “Little Discoverers” project of the Bürgerinsel Burghausen charity in order to foster an interest in science at elementary schools and kindergartens with age-appropriate projects.