Participation in the scientific project week of the Martin-Andersen-Nexö-Gymnasium (MANOS)

Prof. Dr. Christian Leßmann (Chair of Economics, in particular International Economic Relations) supervised three 7th grade students from Dresden's Martin-Andersen-Nexö-Gymnasium (MANOS) as part of a scientific project week from 23-27 February 2026. The grammar school specializes in mathematics and science and is a cooperation school of the TUD Dresden University of Technology. The pupils regularly achieve top rankings in Mathematical Olympiads.

The aim of Christian Leßmann's project was to teach the students the method of regression analysis and then to put it into practice with RStudio using a simple data set (AfD election results at district level and various socio-economic variables). The particular challenge was that central mathematical concepts such as functions had not yet been covered in class. At the same time, the students were exceptionally quick to understand and very analytical.

The results were presented on February 27 at the HTW Dresden. The organization corresponded to a scientific conference: parallel sessions of the 7th grades as well as a large poster session of the 8th grades, with teachers and supervisors as audience.Among around 50 projects, the one supervised by Prof. Dr. Christian Leßmann was the only one outside the STEM field; many other groups worked on topics such as robotics or computer science.