by Veronika Schallhart and Thiemo Kronlechner [University of Vienna]
Look into what the University was like and find stories which will not only give food for thought but also make you smile.
Discover the University’s Main Building using an app on a phone or tablet. You will answer some questions, take photos, discover hidden places and much more. You can also earn points for every completed task. It helps if you know how to navigate using a map.
This text was used to announce the workshops for children between 9 and 12 years old at the Vienna Children’s University 2026. We held this workshop twice on 23 July, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Both times, we met some very enthusiastic children.
For our tour, we used the Actionbound app. We prepared quizzes and other fun activities for children. The participating children were tasked with answering a variety of questions, including multiple-choice, true or false, estimation and open questions. Moreover, they were asked to take photos of certain motives or themselves (selfies) in front of different monuments and statues of well-known personalities at the University of Vienna.
The children really enjoyed working with an iPad.
We wanted to make sure that the children were active at the event. Similar to a treasure hunt, the participants had to visit 14 monuments and places of remembrance in the Arcaded Courtyard and the Aula at their own pace. At different stations, they had to complete different tasks. The participating children were given printed maps showing the location of the 14 stations. Then, they were divided into groups of 2 to 3 people and given an iPad, a map, a clipboard and a pencil.
IPad with a child-friendly cover with a handle, maps, clipboards and pencils.
After a short introduction, the children could go on the discovery tour. The groups of children had to explore all 14 stations in different order, so that the groups were evenly distributed on the whole event area. The children enjoyed running from one station to another, which allowed them to release their urge to move.
They enjoyed being constantly on the move rather than sitting still.
The main focus of the discovery tour was the period of National Socialism, the wrongdoings of the University and the fates of its academics during the Holocaust. Presenting the biographies of real people helps children to engage with history.
We were very careful in choosing the right words, naming past events correctly without dwelling on the darker aspects of history. We summarised the information in short and easy sentences and avoided using historical terms. If this was not possible, we explained them using simpler words.
As the influence of National Socialism on the University of Vienna and its academics was one of the crucial aspects of the tour, we provided a child-friendly reading recommendation for participants seeking more information about World War II.
Not So Long Ago, Not So Far Away. A Book About the Holocaust. Carla Infanta Gabor. Publisher: Fischer Sauerländer, Frankfurt am Main, 2025.
To conclude the tour, we also discussed the early history of the University, including its foundation in 1365 and the late admission of women to study programmes, which only began in 1897. We also touched upon more recent research results, such as the Nobel Prize for Emanuelle Charpentier in 2020 for the discovery of genetic scissors.
We would like to thank the organisation team of Vienna Children’s University for their support in ensuring the smooth running of both events.
If you are interested in finding out more about the contents of the event, please read our article “Vienna Children’s University 2026: Join a tour of the old University of Vienna! (Part 2)”
All images by ©Alexander Bachmayer
Book cover: © Carla Infanta Gabor