Science op die Vlaktes

The 21st of January is many things to many people. In the USA, it's Martin Luther King Junior day, in honour of the assassinated civil rights leader.

Elsewhere, it's International Spicy Food Day and the good residents of the United Kingdom are cheering themselves up (despite their miserable weather and crowded conditions) by making it National Fetish Day.

Here at the MTN Sciencentre, January 21 was the day we were visited by the students from four Cape Flats schools, courtesy of sponsorship from the Department of Science and Technology. Three of the schools came from Manenberg: Rio Grande primary school from Pecos Road; Manenberg primary school, on the corner of Kei and Kasouga roads and Downville primary school, on Tagus road in Manenberg.



But first up were the students from the Centre for Science and Technology (COSAT, online at http://www.cosat.wcape.school.za) in Khayelitsha/Mitchell's Plain. That's one of the COSAT students, Thembisa Qwabe, pictured above. There is a moving story behind that big grin.

Thembisa was brutally assaulted by two armed robbers who broke into the shack in which she was living nearly two years ago. Her father was away in the Eastern Cape at the time and she was at the time a Grade 11 learner at COSAT, fending for herself in one of the most dangerous areas in Khayelitsha.

The school says ''the attack itself and the indignities and fears that she subsequently had to endure almost broke her. But then, with a degree of determination and maturity quite extraordinary in one so young, Thembisa decided that she would not allow herself to become yet another helpless victim. She would not allow her dreams for the future to be compromised.''

Late in 2007 year, Thembisa (who has visited the MTN Sciencentre) matriculated at COSAT with an A-aggregate and distinctions in Biology, Maths and Xhosa. She attained Bs in Science and English. The picture above shows Thembisa leaving her home, armed with a suitcase and bedding, on one of the most exciting and fulfilling days of her young life. Her dream had finally come true. SHE WAS ON HER WAY TO STELLENBOSCH UNIVERSITY TO BEGIN HER NEW CAREER AS A MEDICAL STUDENT.

Now if that doesn't explain what motivates the staff at schools like COSAT and the team at the MTN Sciencentre, there are no words available!

Thursday's children

On the last day of the first month of the new year, we will be inundated by the grade ten and eleven students from Lückhoff High in Ida's Valley, a suburb of nearby Stellenbosch.

''Especially the grade tens in the subject physical science need a firsthand approach to the subject - to feel something, see something, experience a process - so it becomes real to them,'' said Mrs Cheryl King, the life sciences teacher at Lückhoff.

The 60 or so students will be accompanied by physical science teacher Mrs Georgina Apples, and it's hoped that the visit to the MTN Sciencentre will spark their curiosity about the astonishing world we live in.

''At the moment we do moderately, we're not where we want them to be,'' said Mrs King. ''They have the ability to do much better - especially in science subjects. A lack of good facilities is an issue. We have qualified teachers. The surroundings play quite a great role in their lack of interest. They're not stimulated maybe enough at home.''

Lückhoff was the first Afrikaans-language high school for so-called coloured people in the Boland, said Stellenbosch University rector Russell Botman. In fact, the desire for education was so strong that Lückhoff was the third school to be built in the entire Boland region.

Pupils came to the school from as far away as neighbouring countries such as what was then South-West Africa (now Namibia). Children from remote regions lived with local families, guided by the motto “Education is Light”.

The school was deliberately shut down in 1964 by the education department of the National Party in terms of the Group Areas Act, which threw out the so-called bruin mense in favour of the white minority.

Barely three months before writing their finals, the 1964 matric students were unceremoniously evicted from the building and forcefully relocated — along with students from various church schools — to a cramped, barracks-like building in the ''coloureds-only'' township of Ida’s Valley, where the school remains today.

Ida's Valley was founded in 1920 on the northeast side of Stellenbosch, when many of the first residents farmed vegetables and fruit such as strawberries. Today it is a low-income to working-class suburb of the university town, and you can find many of its residents singing their hearts out in the famous Libertas choir.

According to an article by Hazel Friedman in The Teacher, for more than 25 years educator and activist Pat William, the current headmaster of Lückhoff, has watched with despair how the engine of post-apartheid change has moved in fits and starts.

Together with community stalwarts like Moegamat Kara and Isgak Pool, Williams has embarked on an epic project to rewrite the history of Stellenbosch and to document the trajectory of cultural dispossession experienced by the communities of Ida’s Valley and neighbouring Cloeteville. This, he hopes, will instil in his students a sense of pride in their heritage, helping to heal the wounds of a fractured history.

Let us hope that the visit to the MTN Sciencentre can form part of this process.

touring the winelands

Edzon Robyn, 23, our new mobile science centre assistant, is off on a roadtrip this week. He calls the jol ''my first real outing away from Cape Town,'' with the mellow yellow van packed full of chemicals and Detlef Basel at the wheel, moving through the winelands to whale-watching territory.

Of course, Edzon should be used to travelling ridiculously long distances. He lives in Stellenbosch and takes the train to Goodwood station, and then squeezes into a packed taxi to reach the MTN Sciencentre at Century City.

A month or two ago, Edzon was a student at the University of the Western Cape, finishing off his degree, a Bachelor of Science in biotechnology. ''An email from the MTN Sciencentre ended up in my inbox. I just took a chance and now I'm part of the family,'' he says.

Today, Tuesday January 29, Edzon and Detlef were at Breede Rivier High School in Worcester. Outside was a view of the Brandwacht, Overhex and Langeberg mountains that would have had tourists taking photographs. But nobody was looking because Detlef and Edzon were blowing things up, putting on a tweetalige science show for the grades 9 to 12, with roughly 40 children in each classroom.

''Oh, I had a wonderful experience with the children today. It was amazing to see the teachers, the questions they asked. And some classes came back for another round. They were very much eager,'' Edzon reported.

To give you an idea of the distances, the defence attorneys representing Najwa Petersen in her murder trial are applying for bail on the grounds that making her daughter travel hundreds of kilometres to Breede Rivier prison in Worcester is too far. But the MTN Sciencentre people seem to take it in their stride.

By the evening, the dynamic duo were in Robertson, getting ready for Wednesday's series of science performances at Langeberg secondary school.

And if it's Thursday, you'll find them in Hermanus, having a whale of a time. Next week: the West Coast.

Geos Cape Town Language Centre

About 30 teenaged students from the Geos Cape Town Language Centre, which specialises in teaching English as a foreign language, kicked off the 2008 season to the MTN Sciencentre. The visit on January 18, according to administrator Jaci Mostert (above), included foreign students from the rest of Africa, South America and Europe. ''They really enjoyed the camera obscura, the display on biodiversity in the Western Cape and the walk-on map of southern africa which doubles as a carpet,'' she said.




Then on January 21, we were visited by science teacher Weedaad Nasiep (see above) and her 55 students from grade 11 at COSAT High School, situated on the Good Hope campus of False Bay college in the township of Khayelitsha.



''We regularly take our kids there and the MTN Sciencentre also invites our kids there for things like science week,'' said acting principal Phadiela Cooper, above. Although the school averaged 52% for science higher grade matriculants in December, the students did achieve a 100% overall matric pass rate Phadiela Cooper says she may track down a few matriculants who have yet to hear if they've been accepted for further studies in order to take advantage of the MTN Sciencentre training programme.

Tinkerer, Toymaker

Arvind Gupta, the Indian toys-from-junk educator who visited the MTN Sciencentre and did a demonstration for staff as part of National Science Week 2006, is also on YouTube.

Here is Arvind (winner of India's National Award for Science Popularisation) at SciFest, South Africa's annual (and raucous) national science festival: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ64PjeYego

You can also find Arvind on YouTube making flexagons at the beautiful Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (and see a picture of the campus below) in Pune, India(online at www.iucaa.ernet.in) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlB3Ud1gr5k



Or there's a two-part video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYCl8wivfU which shows Arvind in his natural habitat - in other words, among students - this time in Bangalore This video was shot at Mallya Aditi International School (logo below when the tinkerer and toy-maker worked with kids of Standard 6 and showed them how to make some exciting inventions from ordinary stuff. The school even has its own Wikipedia entry, which is something else the MTN Sciencentre will have to think about doing - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallya_Aditi_International_School



So clearly it's time that the MTN Sciencentre started videoing its science shows and guest speakers and posting them on YouTube. First the blog, then Wikipedia, next YouTube. Paris Hilton, move over, science is coming through!

Detlef Basel on YouTube

THE MTN Sciencentre science show from the 2007 SciFest season has made it on to YouTube, as a clip from SciFest has been uploaded. You can see Detlef Basel with former education head Ruby Frans. You can also see some of our popular Sultans of Science exhibit, designed by MTE Studios and currently in the USA.

Check out YouTube at this website address.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRB5JWaNTw8

And of course, we will be returning to SciFest in April for their 2008 season.

Hugenote Laerskool website

Van Hugenote Laerskool at http://www.hugprim.co.za/index.php?content=grades&grade=7&id=39

GRAAD 7 TOER

Graad 7 Nuus

Explaining ''explaining''

We had a great response from Jani de Bruin's interview on Tuesday with Cobus Bester, above, anchor of the morning current affairs programme Monitor on Radio Sonder Grense (Radio Without Borders).

The interview was on our need for more fun and young science explainers, like those seen below, particularly those who praat die taal, and how this might be a win-win situation for matriculants who have nothing to look forward to after school finished at the end of 2007.

We are holding our next training session in February, and this offers people a chance to earn a little transport money while volunteering. More importantly, it taps them into the networks of the employed world, and builds their skills and confidence.

But much needs to be done to encourage life skills among students who made it through the education system by doing as little as possible.

A similar report on the need for explainers appeared on Thursday in the Vukani newspaper, edited by Vukile Sonandzi. Vukani (which means Wake Up!) is an English and isiXhosa weekly newspaper, one of the Cape Community newspaper titles owned by Independent Newspapers and serving the Khayelitsha - Langa - Gugulethu communities of Cape Town.

Sadly, floor manager Busi Maqubela reports that training began from the moment the conversations started .... at 10 pm. Or 7 am. Hint to job-hunters: try to make the first contact during office hours.

The next problem was that people hadn't even read the article properly or done their homework, and some of them were quite agressive towards her.

Another handy hint to job-hunters: try to introduce yourself by first name, surname and region or suburb when you cold-call someone. And explain why you are phoning. Maybe even apologise for interrupting someone's schedule?

Beginning a conversation with ''so what's this MTN thing?'' to a complete stranger who has the power of hiring and firing you is NOT going to go over well.

And when the employer says something like ''tell me what you know about the MTN Sciencentre,'' it is not a clever idea to respond resentfully with ''I don't know, your name is on this, YOU tell ME.''

We've been blogged

http://thesemplefamily.blogspot.com/2008/01/grubs-up.html

The Semple family have blogged us, with a photo and a story entitled: Grubs up!

This is what it says: Fear factor supreme! Now this is not a meal for the faint-hearted. Notice: where are those legs? I guess you can't see them anywhere! We visited the MTN Science centre and had loads of fun

Science and cars

Everyone who knows Busi Maqubela, the MTN Sciencentre floor manager, knows that she's mal about cars. So we gave her the same driving quiz that appears in The Times newspaper.........

What do you drive? The Toyota Run X 160i sport, my sleek black beauty.

What does your odometer read? It's overdue for service. Around 31 800.

What do you like about your car? Comfort, leg room, acceleration and ohh ... leather seats of course, and speed (shhh!)

What would you like to drive? An Audi Q7.

What's the fastest you have ever driven? 195 km/hr.

What is your worst traffic fine? R400, Vanguard drive (bloody N7), recently, nogal.

Do you consider yourself a good driver? Very good and safe.

What was your first car? Toyota Tazz 130

What's the furthest you've driven without stopping? From Cape Town to Colchester, just outside of Port Elizabeth in Mpumi Koloni, the Eastern Cape.

What's playing on your CD shuttle? Bebe Winans' Up Close & Personal, Shirley Brown - Woman to Woman, The best of Peabo Bryson, Grammy Nominees 2007, Gentle Breeze 2 - the DJ compilation and the Dreamgirls movie soundtrack.

Have you ever done it on the back seat? Why would I answer that?

Do you worry about your contribution to global warming? Yes. I work at the science centre so I know climate change is very worrying.

Do you always buckle up? Always, otherwise there's that irritating sign on my dashboard.

Are you susceptible to road rage? Just a little. Not often.

If you were to customise your licence plate, what would it say? Qubs 22. Qubs is my nickname by friends, shortened from my surname. 22 is my date of birth and one of my lucky numbers, I believe.

Inspiration

Once upon a time, Rhyme Setshedi, the new head of education at the MTN Sciencentre, was a struggling first-year student at the University of Mafikeng.

Up in the NorthWest province, he was living in the residence in a dormitory room meant for one. Of course, students being students, the original occupant had sub-let part of the room for extra cash. A little crowded for a village boy from Montsana, outside Rustenburg, but Rhyme didn't have the cash to afford a private room. He was the first-born, the eldest of three boys, and he was also the first in his family to go to university.

A physics lecturer took pity on him, took him in, fed and housed him. That person was Dan Kgwadi, now a professor and rector at the university, and the two would sit around the table at night and discuss science.

''He really inspired me and I hope I inspire others in turn,'' Rhyme says. ''He made science simple. Science is my hobby. I don't honestly feel like I'm working. I feel like I'm playing with a bg toy, a gadget.''

Perhaps that sense of play, of curiosity, is also the influence of Rhyme's late father, Abson ''Master'' Setshedi. ''My father was not educated but he could fix things like cars and generators and lawnmowers. He was partially paralysed for the last decade of his life from a road accident and was in a wheelchair. We made a good team, I was his hands, before he passed away in 2002.''

And the ability to fix things has already come in useful. The van der Graaf generator used in the static electricity experiments at lucky's Lab was not being co-operative this week. So Rhyme peeked inside, ensured that the rubber belt was rubbing up against the cathode the way it was meant to, and was able to have a training session on Tuesday morning with facilitators Sam Moore, Nadine Samuel, Shahied van Nelson and Fikiswa Majola.

Now it's time for the next generation. At the family level, Rhyme's youngest brother is doing physics and science at matric level, while his middle brother has graduated with a commerce degree.

After seven years teaching at the University of Mafikeng, Rhyme has spent the last three years at the Cape University of Technology here in the Western Cape.

Rhyme teaches in a bridging programme, offering classes in physics and computer skills for matric graduates whose understanding of the subjects is not yet good enough for a first year of an engineering degree. ''I know the MTN Sciencentre because I have brought groups of students here,'' he points out.

He will continue to offer the classes, and stay in touch with the students via the internet, after joining the MTN Sciencentre team.

Rhyme and Reason

There's still lots to do before our hectic holiday programme hibernates after 15 January. Our upcoming science night sleepover and our weekend events were online on community diaries this week and mentioned by both Cape Talk and Kfm radio stations.

In addition, here's just a brief example of what we're doing on Monday:

Lente Maré from the programme Chess for Change runs her noon-time chess matches.

Our favourite science grandaddy, the 70-something Detlef Basel, comes back from leave and goes straight from the science show in the Ericsson auditorium at 1 pm to running a workshop on black and white photo printing at 2 pm.

Lucky's Lab experiments are on in the afternoon. Will it be electroplating (utilising a jolt of electric current to coat something smoothly with metal?) or static electricity? Either way, it should be electrifying! Find out with the MTN Sciencentre's new education head, Rhyme Shetshedi, a lecturer in radiation physics (x-rays to you and me) and computer skills at CAPUT (Cape Peninsula University of Technology).

You could say he's a rock-solid choice to replace Ruby Frans, as Rhyme did his master's degree at Wits University in Johannesburg in the field of materials science and in particular, diamonds! And it's good to have a seTswana speaker on our multilingual staff.

Weekends

Weekends ... a time to relax, sleep in, catch up on tasks....

OK, maybe not at the MTN Sciencentre. Not during the school holidays, at any rate.

There's walking tours of the indigenous bird sanctuary at nearby Intaka Island, the waterway where cormorants and darters flirt, squabble and make a comfy nest amid fynbos and the reeds which filter pollutants out of the water. Tick off sightings on your checklist. Although the science centre itself is well-known for making sure that unaccompanied kids are safe and secure while they have a blast, the Intaka Island excursion is somewhat different. Kids do need to be accompanied by an adult, as there are lots of tempting possibilities for making a splash!

But there are alternatives. Consider a free treasure hunt, suitable for all ages in the science centre itself. Or the Murray & Roberts construction firm, one of South Africa's largest industrial design and engineering firms, has sponsored a free building competition for teams of kids (no adults allowed). Or the daily science shows with pops, bangs, smoke and flames.

The South African company PenFlex is another supporter, allowing us to run a free drawing competition for kids of all ages using their Magic Colour markers to draw science pictures.

Kids aged 5 and older can attend a free turtle workshop in which they make their own paper turtle.

For kids aged eight and older, chemistry gets creative in workshops where you can make your own bouncing ball. Or get eco-conscious and recycle the aluminium from cool drink cans to make fridge magnets. Or build a better mousetrap-powered car, for only R10.

All this, in addition to all the usual activities such as Lucky's Lab and the new water exhibit. The idea is to send the kids back to school, when it opens in mid-January, completely exhausted!

Deadline for Super Silly Science Sleepover

Tomorrow (January 4) is the last date for kids aged 8 to 12 to register for the Super Silly Science Sleepover happening on January 11th at the MTN Sciencentre. The costs is 130 Rands. Only 120 kids can attend.

We're also offering special holiday deals - rocket scientist t-shirts and entry for only R65, or just the t-shirt for R50.

Life after high school

Volunteers like Fateeqah Manan and Jody Hopley, seen above wielding glue guns at a technojunk workshop, are the life and soul of the MTN Sciencentre.

We want more! So if anyone out there got their grade 12 marks at the end of December and hasn't yet organised a job or further studies, don't sink into depression.

Come to the MTN Sciencentre in Cape Town's Canal Walk shopping mall, where we offer to train matric survivors (must be over the age of 16) as explainers, offering them valuable skills and networking opportunities.

Explainers get trained on the camera obscura with its panoramic view of Cape Town, strap people into the rotating gyroscope, make phone calls on the world's biggest cellphone and splash about with kids at the new water display.

Many of the volunteers - who get a transport allowance of up to 80 Rands a shift - go on to find fulltime work.

''It's fun to work at the science centre, you're not stressed. The staff is always cheerful, they're a nice team to work with. You pick up a lot of experience, your people skills improve, and working here helps if you want to deal with children,'' said 19-year-old Nathan Kayser of Eerste Rivier, who was manning the front desk this week. Kayser works at the MTN Sciencentre on weekends and holidays in between studying psychology at University of the Western Cape.

''We're short of Afrikaans-speaking explainers in particular at the moment, but everyone is welcome to come on the course because we get visitors from across South Africa, including Sotho and Zulu speaking regions,'' said floor manager Busi Maqubela. ''Some of our explainers come to us during their in-service training but we have a nice mix of people from all walks of life.''

The science centre, a popular tourist attraction, is open from 9 am to 6 pm most days. Fridays and Saturdays, however, the science centre is open from 9 in the morning until 9 in the evening, and that evening shift often needs people to work at the centre. Explainers must commit to a minimum of 32 hours - or four eight-hour shifts - every month. As Busi Maqubela points out, that's less time than the average teenager spends watching television.

''If matrics have studied science, that helps. But it's not mandatory. We need people to work in our café, help out with birthday parties and assist with events like our science sleepover on January 11, meant for kids aged eight to 12. Explainers have to be able to walk up to visitors with a smile on their face and show them how exhibits work and why it's fun and interesting.''

''Our first training dates in 2008 are set down for February 18 and 19, from 10 am until 3h30 pm,'' said science centre head Julie Cleverdon.

An application form is available at the front desk at the MTN Sciencentre on the upper level of the Canal Walk shopping Mall on the N1 freeway. Or people can email busi.maqubela@mtnsciencentre.org.za for a copy. Busi can be contacted on 083 276 9512.

Bush Radio blog

Our notice about our holiday workshops on making paddleboats from plastic bottles , and the new water exhibit at the MTN Sciencentre, has been put online at the new Bush Radio blog, at http://www.bushradionews.blogspot.com/.

Paddleboat workshops continue on January 7 and 14. The workshops are ideal for kids aged 8 and up. Contact 021 529 8100.