Light of the future It is getting brighter and brighter on earth. The light bulb has changed life dramatically. It is now a thing of the past and its successors, especially LED technology, make it possible for many regions to shine brightly for almost 24 hours a day. Bright street lamps that emit light in all directions - every night billions of insects die there, migratory birds lose their orientation, and even we humans experience that artificial light influences our sleep because we are tuned to a day-night rhythm. Day/brightness means activity, in the night/at darkness the organism switches to recovery. But in metropolises it gets brighter and brighter, video screens and billboards compete until midnight for the favour of the customers and activate our body when it should be recovering. Research is being conducted worldwide to find ways to reduce the flood of light to a healthy level. Physicists, biologists, physicians and engineers are working on the lighting of the future - a light that neither wastes energy nor unnecessarily illuminates the night sky, does not kill insects and, thanks to special color spectra, also lets people sleep undisturbed. After all, it is not a question of making cities completely dark. It's about lighting them more sustainably and intelligently. At the first meeting (kick off), the international research project "Loss of the Night" will be presented to the students, among other things with a touring exhibition. They get to know the app "Loss of the Night" and apply it. There will be an exchange about the importance of lighting and lighting situation in the respective partner cities. In the meantime, the pupils scientifically record how bright the respective region really is, whether there is light pollution and analyse the actual state. A networking with politicians takes place to find out whether there are already measures for reduction. At the next meeting an exchange of the determined values for light pollution in the respective region takes place via the data of the app "Loss of Night". The effects of light pollution will be presented and discussed by the individual partners on the basis of the selected priorities. Ideas for reducing light pollution are then collected and together we develop a vision of the light of the future. Until the final meeting, work will continue on the implementation of the concrete project: "How can light pollution be reduced in my city?" These project results will be presented at the final meeting of all participants.These ideas are presented to local politicians.
Light of the Future It is getting brighter and brighter on earth. The light bulb has changed life decisively. It is now a thing of the past and its successors, in particular LED technology, make it possible for many regions to shine brightly almost 24 hours a day. In this project, three partner schools from Germany, Italy and Greece have impressively worked out how important it is to deal with light pollution in Europe. Light pollution refers to the brightening of the night sky by artificial light sources whose light is scattered into the atmosphere. Man is the only cause of light pollution. He illuminates the night only according to his perception, other living beings are not considered. Many people were not aware of this kind of pollution. We have gained a lot of positive experience that education about light pollution was heard and accepted. Especially our students were able to share their knowledge, they were listened to, especially by representatives of local politics. The goal of the project was that it is not about making cities completely dark. It's about lighting them more sustainably and intelligently. We have consistently pursued this objective. At the kick off meeting in Bonn, we looked at what light pollution is, how to measure it, and what a dark night sky with lots of stars looks like. For this purpose, we had borrowed a traveling exhibition of the international research project Loss of Night. The students learned about the APP "Loss of Night" and were able to try it out in the Eifel Star Park. In addition, the students created a project logo. Until the next meeting in Greece, the project partners will deal with the extent of light pollution in their region. However, the students were particularly interested in the victims of light pollution. They then dealt with this topic mainly at the next meeting in Veria. Full of ideas on what to do about light pollution, the next phase of the project began. Citizen surveys were conducted, contact was made with the city authorities and ideas were collected on how to reduce light pollution. Together a vision of the light of the future was developed and at the final meeting in Rome all partners presented their ideas. At this final meeting, a large public demonstration against light pollution was held and our students were heard by the city government. In any case, an important long-term benefit is that our students experienced that a commitment to a certain cause can also be successful. This is especially important when it comes to young people's political participation. Another long-term benefit is that the topic of light pollution has been anchored in the didactic annual plan of the subject of environmental protection and physics in various educational courses at the vocational college in Bonn-Duisdorf.