Lack of proper learning aids and resources to teach sciences is a serious problem for most schools in township areas. Most schools in these areas do not have laboratories and those that do lack the apparatus to carry out experiments and other practical activities.
As a result some learners have to travel to well-resourced urban-based schools to use their laboratories and other resources. But given the poverty in the townships, only a few learners are able to make these trips into town.
Help is at hand, though, as the University of Johannesburg (UJ) has introduced a new short programme to equip teachers with improvisation skills. Josef de Beer, from UJ’s department of mathematics, science, technology and computer education, is the architect of this new initiative.
Called Science on a Shoestring, the programme ”provides teachers with the know-how and skills to get the ball rolling in uplifting science education at their schools”, said De Beer. He said the course would teach them how to use low-cost alternatives to more costly, traditional laboratory activities.
De Beer said the course encourages teachers to tap into their local environment to make science relevant and exciting to learners. Teachers are also urged to make teaching and learning media from recyclable materials.
He said the idea is to promote a ”zero cost” principle and to get teachers to use these low-cost alternatives without seeing them as second best. De Beer said research shows that ”in well-equipped laboratory, learners are often busy with ‘hands-on’ science, but not necessarily ‘minds-on’ science”.
In a laboratory setting, he said, ”learners are often expected to follow recipes with very little intellectual engagement or few traces of science as inquiry. Shoestring science often avoids this pitfall and it places cognition and skills development at the centre.”
He said the shoestring approach is gaining popularity within the scientific community. The South African Association of Science and Technology Educators (Saaste) has pencilled in a conference in July this year that will explore the same theme.
De Beer came up with the idea for the course after he attended a shoestring biotechnology programme last year in Atlanta in the United States. The course focused on low-cost, high-quality biotechnology laboratories in science, he said.
His course would also address the current energy crisis in South Africa, where the public is being urged to switch to solar as an alternative energy source. Said De Beer: ”One of the activities that forms part of this short learning programme is one in which learners are expected to build solar cookers.”
All that is required to build a solar cooker are a shoe box, aluminium foil, a drink can painted black, sticky tape, cling wrap and water — materials that are easy to find and are either free or cheap. If the solar cooker is well designed, the water can easily reach a temperature of 70 degrees Celsius, De Beer said.
The other key feature of the programme that should make it more appealing to local teachers is the incorporation of ”indigenous” knowledge. This should stimulate animated debates as it explores the extent to which Western and traditional healing practices can co-exist.
The idea is to highlight the effective treatments that sangomas use to heal, among others, sexually transmitted diseases and cancer. One of the herbs used is called ”cancer bush” (scientifically known as Sutherlandia frutescens), initially discovered by San, Khoi and Zulu healers. Researchers have confirmed it contains ingredients with medicinal value and have hypothesised that this may help boost the immune system of people with cancer or Aids. In the shoestring approach, a teacher could show learners how to test for antimicrobial activity in plants, De Beer said.
The long-term objective of UJ is to offer the programme free of charge to all science teachers in the country. This would strengthen the department of education’s drive to increase the output of science learners in the country. But it can only happen, said De Beer, if partners from the private sector come forward with sponsorship.