Wissenschaftsbotschafterin — How one might imagine time travel
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Imagining Time Travel: A Science Ambassador Visit to a Vienna Kindergarten
On March 9, I had the opportunity to visit KIWI-Kindergarten Steinergasse I in Vienna as part of the OeAD Young Science – Science Ambassadors (Wissenschaftsbotschafter:innen) initiative. The program connects researchers with schools and educational institutions across Austria, allowing scientists to share their research and curiosity directly with young learners.
For this visit, the theme was both playful and ambitious: How can we imagine time travel?
A journey through time—through imagination
Explaining scientific ideas to very young children requires a different approach than teaching in a classroom or lecture hall. Instead of formulas or technical explanations, the workshop began with open questions:
If you could travel through time, where would you go?
Would you visit the past or the future?
What might the world look like hundreds of years from now?
The children enthusiastically shared their ideas—dinosaurs, robots, strange machines, and entirely new worlds quickly appeared in the conversation.
Painting time travel
Rather than simply talking about these ideas, the children translated their imagination into paintings.
Each child created their own visual interpretation of time travel: colorful portals, futuristic cities, mysterious machines, and journeys to prehistoric landscapes. Through painting, the abstract concept of time travel became something tangible and expressive.
The artworks became a way for the children to think about time in creative ways—imagining past worlds, possible futures, and the technologies that might connect them.
Art proved to be a powerful bridge between scientific curiosity and creative expression.
Science outreach through collaboration
The visit was part of the Science Ambassadors program coordinated by OeAD, which brings researchers into schools and educational environments to make science more accessible and engaging.
This activity was also connected to collaborations between the TU Wien Institute of Photonics, in collaboration with researcher Alessandra Bellissimo and the Zentrum Kunst und Fachdidaktik at the Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien.
The interdisciplinary exchange between science, art, and education helped shape the format of the workshop—encouraging children not only to ask questions about the universe but also to express their ideas visually.
Inspiring curiosity early
Programs like the Science Ambassadors initiative aim to create direct encounters between researchers and young learners. Even at kindergarten level, children are naturally curious about big questions: time, space, the future, and the unknown.
By combining storytelling, discussion, and painting, the workshop created a space where science could begin with imagination.
The Science Ambassadors initiative is supported by the Bundesministerium für Bildung and the Bundesministerium für Frauen, Wissenschaft und Forschung, which fund initiatives that strengthen science communication and engagement across Austria.
Curiosity as the starting point
The paintings created during the workshop show how naturally children approach complex ideas when they are invited to imagine freely. Their time-travel visions ranged from prehistoric adventures to futuristic machines—each artwork a small narrative about how the world might change across time.
Moments like this remind us that science communication is not only about explaining knowledge, but also about creating spaces where curiosity, creativity, and questions can grow.
And sometimes, the first step toward understanding time is simply painting what it might look like.
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