Flickr

MTN Sciencentre in Cape Town, South Africa is showing up in Flickr, the world's largest online photo-sharing outlet. Danie van der Merwe, who took the photo, called it ''Kaylyn at MTN Science Centre'' and told Flickr ''This is apparently the world's biggest working cellphone with fully working software ...

More photos online at http://www.flickr.com/photos/dvdmerwe/archives/date-posted/2007/12/11/

Amy Biehl Foundation

Merry Christmas to Ilchen Retief of the Amy Biehl Foundation, set up by the parents of the 26-year-old Stanford University student and Fulbright Scholar, who was murdered in Cape Town the dying days of apartheid.

In their last newsletter of the year, Ilchen mentioned the MTN Sciencentre as one of the places that waived entrance fees so that children from the townships were treated to the following outings.

The foundation, like the MTN Sciencentre, is heavily involved in educating our youth. For more on the Amy Biehl Foundation, they're online at http://www.amybiehl.co.za/

School's almost out

School visits are tapering off, as teachers cope with exams and marking and the upcoming holidays.

But that's not to say we've been left completely on our own. For one thing, as school visits decrease, individual visits shoot up.

And we have been visited this month by 69 grade one students at Mountain Road primary school in Woodstock, under the guidance of educator Leré Zeeman. A few days later, their older classmates from grade six joined us after this was organised by teacher Fatiema Stolk.

It was Leré Zeeman's first trip to the science centre, and she was worried about the lack of parental oversight and the size of the science centre - but that was before she attended her pre-meeting, where she oriented herself.

After the actual school trip, she was relieved, commenting on the efficiency and organisation with which staff sorted out places to drop school bags, divided the three classes into groups and rotated the kids to a new exhibit or experiment every half an hour. The lack of parents was no longer a worry, because the staff made sure that no small budding scientists managed to get lost.

Leré was also struck by the niceness of her female guide (sadly anonymous) and specifically office staff like Carmen Solomons. ''We'll be going every year.''

In between, the MTN Sciencentre hosted the grade 5s from Oakhurst Primary, led by teacher Pam Frost, and the kids from Forres Preparatory school, led by teacher Lyn Richards. Both schools hail from Rondebosch.

In the same week, the science centre was visited by 118 grade 6 students from the mixed Afrikaans/English school known as Sid G. Rule primary school under teacher Jerome Jeniker in Grassy Park.

''We go regularly to the science centre,'' said Jerome Jeniker. ''It was quite different this year because they offered us workshops on the planets and there was much more to do.''

Two religious private schools, Laerskool Paul Greyling from VisHoek (Fish Hoek) and the grades R and the grades 4 from the Christian Private School (CPM) in Malmesbury also visited. CPM teacher Henriette Smit said, ''it was excellent and all my parents loved it.''

Parents? Turns out that Mevrou Smit had 50 parents and grandparents there to ''accompany'' the 24 children. ''Some came just to see what was going on,'' she confirmed. But not to worry that this altered the focus: ''the children enjoyed it as well.''

Kulula.com and SAA unite

Julie Cleverdon, Jani De Bruin and Busi Maqubela (above) are off on Tuesday to attend the Southern African Association of Science and Technology Centres (SAASTEC), being held this year in Bayworld in Port Elizabeth.

Busi will be speaking on 'tools we've used in communicating global warming and climate change at the MTN Sciencentre' on Wednesday November 28th.

Julie will be talking about our fabulous mobile science laboratory, and has given her talk the title 'mellow, yellow and it's a jolly smart fellow' - and this is also on Wednesday the 28th.

Jani says she has taken a vow of silence and will not be talking on any issue. Odd, that. Also odd: the blogmeister has not one decent photo of Jani. So if anyone out there has one ... you know where to find me!

They return on Friday. SAA one way, Kulula.com the other.

math holiday camp

Detlef Basel (above) and Eloise Nefdt go with the mobile science centre on Monday November 26 to a three-day maths and science camp at the Cape Academy of Mathematics and Science, the relatively new boarding school for promising high school students from across the province.

So they will be hanging out in the leafy green Cape Town suburb of Tokai, overlooked by Table Mountain. Who said science has to be tough?

Speakers at the camp include financial sector mathematician Dr Diane Wilcox, until recently a lecturer at the University of Cape Town, and participants such as Achmat Adams, Emmanuel Mushayikwa and Jonathan Clarke.

On day two, the kids do oceanography at Kalk Bay harbour and then hone their orienteering skills on a hike over the mountain back to Tokai. Maths and science projects are the main focus, however.

The programme is a joint effort by the University of Cape Town and the Western Cape education department. Organiser Naphtali Mokgalapa says a girls' camp is scheduled for next week.

Aligning with the Non-Aligned Movement

The MTN Sciencentre has been invited to participate in the Non-Aligned Movement's fifth international workshop on enhancing change through science centres, in Gauteng in February 2008.

The Non-Aligned Movement grew out of the Cold War hostilities between the then Soviet Union (now Russia) and the USA. (thanks to Wikipedia for the map above - light blue countries have observer status, dark blue represents NAMers).

As ideological differences between communism and capitalism created a polarised ''you're either with us or you're against us'' mentality, NAM was formed in the 1950s to create a neutral breathing space for many countries which were too poor or too independent to get caught up in the confrontation.

With 118 nations as members, about half the world's population falls under the Non-Aligned Movement.

The Centre for Science and Technology of the Non-Aligned Movement and other developing countries, based in New Delhi in India, has been organising such workshops since their first was held in Kolkata in India in 2002.

One workshop was held in Bogotá, Colombia with the assistance of the Maloka Science Centre in 2004. Another was held in Hanoi, Vietnam, in 2004, and one was held last year in Lusaka, Zambia in partnership with the National Science Centre of Zambia.

Somehow, Boksburg - the venue for the three-day workshop in February - doesn't sound nearly as exotic, does it?

The return of Lego League

Sadly, Sunday's FIRST Lego League friendly robotics tournament had to be cancelled. This was upsetting for the teens from the Kiddiwinks team as well as the Funky Moneky Clan from Somerset College and the Live Wires team from Belgravia High in Athlone.

''We were so sad,'' said Bashiera Allie, the team leader for Live Wires.

Other teams, including All Sparks, led by Aakirah Firfirey from Belgravia High in Athlone, simply had to cancel because the end-of-school-year marks had to be in by noon on Monday. Teachers sinply had to work all weekend marking papers.

A number of teams - Dynamic Dynamos from Science Educational Resources Initiative (SERI) in Khayeltisha, Robotronics from Bishops College in Rondebosch - sent apologies because the schools have already broken up for South Africa's holidays.

It is thought that the schools that didn't respond - including Micro Maniacs, the provincial champions from Elkanah House in Tableview - may have already ended for the holidays, with exams done and the lure of the beach overwhelming!