Cooperation with schools across Germany

Since September 2018, the Bavarian State Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs has been funding CyberMentor Plus. The program is offered at selected schools across Germany that participate in the federal–state educational initiative "Leistung macht Schule". For the nationwide initiative, the second phase (transfer phase) has begun in 2023, in which schools that were involved in the first phase act as multipliers to pass on the jointly developed strategies and concepts in school networks.

CyberMentor Plus aims to integrate the mentees' school environment into supporting their STEM interests. To do so, the online mentoring program is combined with an additional school-based offering. At the participating schools, STEMteachers run weekly STEM clubs for mentees participating at CyberMentor Plus, where the school's mentees exchange ideas and carry out projects together. Regular contact between STEM teachers and online mentors help to strengthen the linking among all participants.

STEM clubs are offered at participating schools under the leadership of STEM teachers. The activities in the STEM clubs accompany the online mentoring and are based on the four phases of the CyberMentor year "STEM daily", "STEM active", "STEM together" and "STEM review". STEM topics and project ideas discussed during the mentoring can thus be brought into the STEM club by the mentees - and vice versa: STEM topics discussed in the STEM club can be discussed or deepened with the mentors and other mentees within the mentoring. This way, online mentoring can become integrated into the mentees' everyday lives. This is intended to reach an even broader target group of schoolgirls interested in STEM and to achieve particularly sustainable STEM promotion.

To support the linking of online mentoring and the school-based STEM club, the mentors and STEM teacher exchange ideas on a quarterly basis. This provides mentors with insights into the daily environment of their mentees. For example, STEM resources at the school (e.g., special equipment, labs, science collections) and in the mentee's environment (e.g., internship opportunities, observatory, libraries) can be discussed. Mentors also have the opportunity to discuss together with the teacher whether projects planned during mentoring can be carried out as part of the STEM club. The project results can in turn be discussed with the mentors and shared with other participants on the CyberMentor platform. Moreover, the mentors can give their mentees valuable advice on scientific work or research possibilities concerning projects of the STEM club. That way, synergies can be created so that STEM club and online mentoring mutually benefit from each other.