Table 4 Exemplary quotes from the participants

Eggert and Bögeholz (2006)

Understanding and reflecting values and norms

Sub-category: intra- and intergenerational responsibility “It’s quite obvious […] when I’m 80 years old, there won’t be any oil anymore […] and that’s something I don’t want to witness. And that’s why I believe it’s important to start thinking about it now. Because this isn’t something that only my children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren witness […] but even I am witnessing this and I don’t want to blame myself for this.” [Student 1–00:03:44–00:04:23]

Developing and reflecting solutions

Sub-category: Scientific working“I think the most exciting part is to plan and to conduct an experiment and to analyze it afterwards. To see the difference between the things you actually had planned and what turns out to be the result. Problems often arise while working. We, for example, said that we want to do a pilot study first. And this pilot study showed us that the product wasn’t working because the pump wasn’t strong enough. And therefore the experimental setup has changed accordingly.” [Student 9–00:26:21–00:27:01]

Evaluating and reflecting solutions qualitatively

“Actually, it’s never the case that there are only equivalent options […] it’s more like a different weighting or a hierarchy where we have to say what’s more important […] so different aspects are unequally important. And it’s of little avail to have the most awesome product when, in the end, it’s so expensive that nobody is going to use it.” [Student 9–00:25:18–00:26:12]

Empowerment

Sub-category: Agents of change “I do believe that my attitude towards sustainable development has changed because I realized during the project work that one can actually do something using simple methods […] and many people like the idea and this shows how excited they are that young adults support the environment and care for a sustainable development” [Student 7, 00:14:44–00:15:20]

Empowerment

Sub-category: Empowerment of scientific interest “I think the greatest difference is that we thought of a research question on our own, that we planned the experiments on our own and that we don’t have a strict procedure to follow. If you think about a placement, for example in chemistry, [...] having a note that says what we need and what we have to do and so on. And this is, of course, different [in the competition context] because we don’t have somebody who thinks for us” [Student 8–00:33:43–00:34:27]