"It surprises me that it is so nice and clean here. I thought industrial technician was boring, but now it is a possible job for me one day.”

Rasmus Wissendorf Apitz is in the 6th grade at Rolfsted School. Together with the class, he has had a full school day at Lykkegaard Pumper in Ferritslev as part of the project the "Business Backpack" in Faaborg-Midtfyn Municipality.

At Lykkegaard they have seen the factory, heard about how pumps are produced, met the two apprentices who are not currently at school - and then they themselves have been measuring and calculating the volume of a pump, the area and volume of the warehouse and calculated dimensions on boxes and examined how many can be on the warehouse shelves.

The whole aim of the day is for the students to experience how mathematics is used in reality and get an impression for the local workplaces. In this way, they both gain more knowledge about why they have to learn things at school and that what they can be used for. And in addition, it should also open the students' eyes to some of the educational paths they can also choose when they leave school.

Cool to measure the big things

Rasmus, Harun and Mikkel agree that it is a fun way to be at school.

"It is more exciting to do mathematics this way. You can touch things and walk around and measure. And it is bigger than what we can measure at school," says Mikkel Majbom Møller and Harun Spahic adds:

“This is real. These are real things we measure. It was cool to get out and measure things where we had to go around and do it and not just sit on a chair,” he says.

Challenged the prejudices about companies

The boys talk excitedly about the tour that owner Karsten Lykkegaard has given them at the factory. And how they found out that waste is sorted into over 40 different parts, so that as much as possible can be recycled

“I thought you would get dirty in a factory. But here it is very bright and clean. And you can see they are keen on keeping order. I didn't expect that, but it makes it nice to be here," Mikkel Majbom Møller says, who also recounts that part of the focus on cleaning is also due to the working environment, which becomes better and healthier for the employees when the environment is clean them.

Provides a different way of learning.

Teacher Jesper Hybel is enthusiastic about the collaboration with Lykkegaard in relation to the students' teaching. Because it both provides opportunities for the students who are best motivated by understanding exactly what their assignments will be used for - and because they learn about working life by visiting.

"It's healthy to get out. For some of the students, this makes much more sense than sitting and calculating tasks on a piece of paper. We won't have to do anything here at the factory that they haven't already learned. But translating what they have learned theoretically into solving problems here is something completely different and gives them a lot," he says. And adds:

"I am impressed by how much time Karsten Lykkegaard spends on us and our teaching on a day like this. It gives the students a great experience and a lot of knowledge about the labor market, the training for industrial technicians, which we cannot provide in the same way at school,"

You must give back to your local area

At Lykkegaard Pumper, Karsten Lykkegaard is the 4th generation in the family that owns the company. They designed and produced pumps for over 130 years and had apprentices for almost as many years.

Therefore, Karsten Lykkegaard also knows that creating knowledge about his profession and his company among young people is crucial if you also want to be able to recruit employees in the future. And that is one of the reasons why he has joined the "Business Bckpack" from the start.

"We have a big responsibility in showing the young people what it means to take a vocational training and learn to work with your hands. Not everyone is the best at sitting with their head in a book. Some are better at creating something with their hands - and they must experience that there are good, important and exciting courses and jobs for them. And we are companies that are ready to accept them, both as apprentices and as employees," Karsten Lykkegaard says.

He spends the whole day with the school pupils while they are at the factory. Both to help them and because he thinks it's fun.

“They are funny, the young people. They ask so many good questions about everything from how much the machines cost and what we earn, to how much water a pump can pump per second and how we sort waste. We also learn something from having visits from the school pupils.

Faaborg-Midtfyn Municipality has developed the "Business Backpack" so that school pupils from 4th to 9th grade transfer part of their mathematics lessons to various local companies. The main porpose is to let the pupils experience what it is like to work with their hands. Faaborg-Midtfyn Kommune has one of the highest share of young people choosing vocational education in Denmark. And the number is increasing.