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