Excursion to the United Nations Campus in Bonn
Excursion to the United Nations Campus in Bonn
On 21st March 2019 all English advanced classes went to the UN Campus in Bonn to learn more about the United Nations. But first of all we had to pass the security check to enter the building.
We were welcomed by Mr Ganns, Senior Advisor of the UN Visitor Service. Our first stop was a conference room where we listened to a presentation about the UN, how it is organized and how it tries to deal with global issues such as climate change, war, starvation or the enormous number of refugees. Mr Ganns made use of many pictures and statistics in his presentation and provided us with detailed information without using any notes making the presentation very interesting and authentic.
After the presentation we went up to the 29th floor to enjoy the stunning view over Bonn. Due to the fact that the building is mostly made of glass we had a 360° view of the surrounding area. We could even see the skyline of Cologne even though it was a bit cloudy. Our guide told us more about Bonn, the buildings we could see and their function, which was very interesting.
After the tour we thanked our guide for the informative and interesting tour.
Although the tour was not in English, we think it was a great experience to go to the United Nations Campus and to learn something about the UN from an expert.
We hope, other classes will also get the opportunity to visit the United Nations Campus and to broaden their horizons.
Maryam Mahfoud, Meike Krupp
A Visit to the Museum König in Bonn
One group of students of the three advanced courses in English visited the exhibition Planet 3.0 at the Museum König in Bonn. The exhibition shows the development of earth and puts its focus on the most important stages of the development in Earth’s history, which are presented in the museum in a time lapse.
Our group gained an insight into topics like the origins of climate and how different elements have influenced our habitat. This was especially interesting as none of these topics are usually dealt with in class and it initiates ways to deal with our environment.
Nico Hausmann
A Visit to the “Haus der Geschichte” in Bonn
Following our visit to the United Nations we went to the Haus der Geschichte for a guided tour through German history from World War II until today.
Our guide was a former teacher of history and English and therefore, of course, the language spoken during our tour was English. It proved quite challenging to browse through a period of almost three quarters of a century within a tour of only 90 minutes. Our guide pointed out the crucial events of German history to give us a general survey of the post-war history of West and East Germany, consequently there was not enough time to look at various interesting exhibits more closely.
The guide explained to us one major concept of the museum, which is the juxtaposition of exhibits from West German and East German history. It is meant to make the visitors aware of the fundamental differences in the development of the two parts of Germany in order to understand the ideological controversy involving Germany in the Cold War and to realize how different life was within a capitalist and a socialist society.
Highlights of our tour certainly were an original candy bomber which transported goods to the closed-off West Berlin during the Berlin Blockade in 1948, the original seats from the former plenary chamber of the German Bundestag in Bonn or an original movie theatre of the 1950s.
Equally fascinating was the documentation of the student revolution in 1968 with a colourful old Volkswagen van exhibit conveying the spirit of the flower-power and the make-peace-not-war movement.
Most of us agreed that a second visit to the museum is bound to follow, but then without a guide and with plenty of time to explore the exhibition on our own.
