Oxford German Olympiad 2020:
NATUR UND TECHNIK
THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED.
CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE WINNING ENTRIES.
Closing date for all entries: Friday 13 March 2020.
Download the full competition details and guidelines here.
Please note:
- Each participant must submit an entry form and a teacher form.
- Each participant may only enter for one task within their age group as an INDIVIDUAL entrant.
- We require a consent form for under-13 participants. Click here to download the form.
Tasks for Round 2 of the Oxford German Olympiad are now also online.
Inspiration
Click here for some of our thoughts and ideas about NATUR UND TECHNIK in the German-speaking world, how and where the two concepts overlap and what challenges they might pose to us in the 21st century.
The Competition Tasks
Years 5 and 6 (age 9-11):
- Design a robot and label its parts, and write what it can do.
- Draw a picture of your home city, town or village from a Vogelperspektive - bird's eye view. Label the things the bird is most interested in.
- You're going to set up a community on Mars - draw your spaceship and the fifteen most important things to take, and label them.
Years 7 to 9 (age 11-14):
- Create a poster explaining Klimawandel.
- Find out about Ötzi, the Tyrolean Iceman. What technical invention would he choose to take back to his community if he could time-travel? Draw Ötzi with a speech bubble explaining his choice, and illustrate and describe the invention.
- Create a blogpost on a topic of your choice, with 3-5 photos taken by yourself, for a German-language online conservation magazine.
Years 10 and 11 (age 14-16):
- "Ein Tag ohne Technik" - Write a story or create a video or website on this theme.
- Paint or draw a landscape in the style of Caspar David Friedrich and write about the work of art that inspired it.
- "Machen wir unsere Erde unbewohnbar?" Write a dialogue between two people who disagree about the answer.
Years 12 and 13 (age 16-18):
- "Klimawandel - was können Jugendliche tun?" Plan a conference for 16-18 year olds including the advertisement and programme with keynote lectures and topics for roundtable discussion.
- "Vorsprung durch Technik - Rückschritt für die Natur?" Write a blogpost or create a video with this title.
- Record yourself giving a presentation on "Fahrerloser Verkehr - Utopie oder künftige Wirklichkeit?" or "Techno-Pop - Typisch deutsch?" .
Open Competition for Groups or Classes (4+ participants)
- Create a film or PowerPoint presentation with the title "Amazonas in Gefahr".
- Write and illustrate a short book for children about a migrating bird.
- "Ein Roboter in der Schule!" - Create a video or song about a robot designed for helping with practical tasks in your school.
Discover German - Taster Competition (1-3 participants with no prior experience of studying German)
- Years 7 to 9: Find 10 inventions from German-speaking countries and the German word for each invention. Film yourself saying the German and the English word for each of your 10 examples.
- Years 10 and 11: Rewrite (in English) the Grimm Brothers' story of "The Frog Prince" (Der Froschkönig) with the title "The Robot Prince", setting it in a real modern German-speaking city and including 15 German compound nouns (like Frosch+König).
- Years 12 and 13: Write a blogpost on the topic "Will machine translation make human translators obsolete?" and support your argument with examples from German.
The Oxford German Network is grateful for the support of the following:
Founding Partners:
Jesus College, Oxford
Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Magdalen College School, Oxford
BMW Group Plant Oxford
Patrons:
Ferreras Willetts Family
Donor of the German Classic Prize: Jonathan Gaisman QC
The Oxford German Network gratefully acknowledges
the generous support of ALL and ISMLA to the Oxford German Olympiad 2018
Additional prizes have been generously donated by the following:
Austrian Cultural Forum London
Blackwell UK Ltd.
Camden House (Boydell & Brewer)
Embassy of Switzerland in the United Kingdom
German Embassy London
Goethe Institut, London
Oxford University Press
Penguin Books
The Oxford German Network would like to thank the Bodleian Libraries for permission to use the Blackwell Hall in the Weston Library.