the McClean telescope at the SAAO in Cape Town.
Abstract. Recent history in South Africa has created unique problems
in many areas, including education. The SA government has initiated a new
curriculum, known as Curriculum 2005, in an attempt to address this problem.
The South African Astronomical Observatory's contribution to this curriculum
and the methods used to raise the awareness of science in general, and
astronomy in particular, in the previously disadvantaged community, are
briefly discussed.
Sommaire. Les évènements historiques récents en Afrique du Sud
ont suscité des problèmes spécifiques dans de nombreux domaines,
l'enseignement inclus. Le gouvernement de l'Afrique du Sud a lancé un
nouveau programme d'étude, appelé ``Curriculum 2005," pour tenter de
résoudre le problème éducatif. Nous discutons brièvement la
contribution de l'Observatoire Astronomique de l'Afrique du Sud à ce
programme et les méthodes employées pour éveiller dans la communauté
jadis défavorisée, la conscience de la science en général, et de
l'astronomie en particulier.
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the McClean telescope at the SAAO in Cape Town. |
``Scientific endeavour is not purely utilitarian in its objectives and has important associated cultural and social values. It is also important to maintain a basic competence in flagship sciences such as physics and astronomy for cultural reasons. Not to offer them would be to take a negative view of our future - the view that we are a second-class nation chained forever to the treadmill of feeding and clothing ourselves." (White Paper 1996)
``A knowledge of astronomy produces a humility that creates a respect for planet Earth and an awareness of the delicacy of its environment." (Rijsdijk 1995)
``One of the problems of our time is to overcome the attitudes that tend to justify and reinforce the isolation of the scientific community. We must open new channels of communication between science and society." (Ilya Prigogine)
The SAAO's Science Education Initiative, (SEI) set out a number of specific goals (Rijsdijk 1996) which can be summarized briefly as:
Implementation of the SEI was to take place over four different periods:
Since there is a relatively poor level of science literacy, let alone knowledge of astronomy, in South Africa, the underlying philosophy of the programme is to use astronomy to stimulate an interest in science rather than to actually teach astronomy as such. This does not, however, preclude the teaching of some aspects of astronomy when the opportunity arises.
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not just a learning experience - it's fun too. |
A Science Education Resources Centre has been established inside a refurbished storeroom at the SAAO. This has deliberately been left ``low tech" and simple. The reason for this is to show educators that it is not necessary to have expensive ``steel and glass" laboratories with all the ``mod cons" in order to teach science/astronomy; teachers could duplicate such a facility almost anywhere. The Centre was completed towards the end of 1996 and was officially opened by US astronaut, Capt. Winston Scott during his visit to South Africa. It is large enough to hold workshops for about 25 people at a time and is in daily use.
The resources that have been developed are simple and use readily available and cheap materials. Things like planispheres, a ``Sunometer," a device showing the movement of the Sun across the sky, and a simple sundial made from A4 card/paper have proved successful and popular. A cheap telescope made with plastic lenses and cardboard tubes is another very popular item. These resources are used not only to do some simple science/astronomy but are also developed into complete teaching packets that illustrate many scientific/astronomical concepts.
Because the new Curriculum 2005 emphasizes an integrated approach to education, many of the resources developed have a cross-curricular theme and are designed to give easy access to topics outside science/astronomy. For example the Seascope is a simple device for use in environmental classes, enabling learners to see under water without getting wet or disturbing what they are looking at.
Many of these resources use ideas that have been developed in the northern hemisphere and have been adapted to suit the southern hemisphere. The north/south problem becomes particularly acute when educators use textbooks that are available locally but are printed overseas - usually in Europe or the US. Educators do not realize that constellations appear to be ``upside down" for observers in the southern hemisphere and that some constellations are not visible from here, or that the Moon phases are the opposite way around to those in the northern hemisphere.
To date a large number of workshop modules have been developed and these are
available to educators as a resource to help learners with Curriculum 2005.
Many have been put on the SAAO homepage, address:
http://www.saao.ac.za/education
and can be downloaded as WP6.1 or ASCII files. With the help Dr Ted Williams and students of Rutgers University, they have all been converted to HTML files. This means that these modules can now be viewed directly on the homepage.
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Good relations have been established with both the Cape Town College of Education and the Western Cape College of Education, and several constructive workshops have been held, both at SAAO and the respective colleges. Several non-governmental educational organizations have also been involved with the programme, in particular the Primary Science Programme.
When the SEI started, one of the principal target groups was secondary (high) school educators. It has, however, become quite clear that this group is far from ideal, the two main reasons being that:
Some schools have brought their `matric' (final year) classes to the SAAO and attended demonstrations/workshops on topics such as `weightlessness' and Newton's Laws. However, these are the exception.
For this reason the SEI is now targeting primary (junior) school educators and this ties up very closely with the teacher training colleges, who only train primary school educators. Primary school learners and educators, up to Grade 9, appear to be more receptive to the idea of some extracurricular activity.
Experiences over the last two years have also shown that children are definitely curious and enjoy doing things like:
The well known problem, ``stars come out at night - students don't" is as relevant here as in other parts of the world. However, experience here has shown that the learners are often willing to come out at night, but educators are not! There are several reasons for this, mostly connected with transport - educators do not as a rule have their own transport and cannot afford to hire transport or take a taxi.
The education techniques used have been ``Minds-On, Hands-On"; getting the
learners to become active role players in all, or as many as possible, of
the exercises at the SAAO. Since a lot of CCD's (charge coupled devices) are
used at observatories, the acronym has been extended to the educational
programme as well:
CCD = Curiosity, Curriculum, Development.
A well chosen, simple demonstration often creates a WOW! amongst learners, and this WOW! factor creates a curiosity that can be related to the curriculum and then developed into a complete educational unit.
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Devil's Peak dominates the skyline in the background. |
The mobile facility would also, although to a lesser extent, fulfill the original goal of taking science to the people. The mobile facility is in fact a mini-bus known as the ``Starbus" and is equipped with materials to run workshops as described above, as well as OHP, video, slide and data projectors. Included are telescopes, one of which is equipped with a CCD camera. This enables people, who would not normally have access to such facilities, to see some modern high-tech equipment in use. Besides this, simple materials are used to illustrate basic scientific concepts. It also gives such people the opportunity to learn about a resource which is more readily accessible to rural communities than urban ones - the night sky!
Schools are contacted well in advance and a programme discussed with the educators involved. Appropriate resources are then assembled and taken to the rural communities. Response to the ``Starbus" has been overwhelming and extra staff have had to be employed to run the ``Starbus" during YEAST.
The SAAO is in fact spread over two sites: the headquarters in Cape Town and the observing site in Sutherland in the Karoo, about 360 km away. Neither site is at present well equipped to deal with large numbers of visitors. In Cape Town, groups of visitors numbering up to about 45 can be accommodated, providing groups of this size do not visit too frequently. The size of the group dictates the number of staff that need to be involved. Often the visiting group is divided into smaller units and these are shown different aspects of the observatory in order to give them an insight into the working of a modern observatory. Each of these units needs a staff member to accompany them and it is the time commitment of staff that determines to some extent the frequency of visits by large groups. Similar problems occur at Sutherland for smaller groups. However, once a year the SAAO has an open night at Sutherland. This is attended by up to 500 people and requires a substantial effort from many staff.
With the announcement of the Southern African Large Telescope, (SALT) (see pp. 6-11 in this issue) the entire approach to visitors will need to be reviewed. It is expected that the building of such a large telescope will generate substantial interest in the public and this will obviously make a significant difference to the number of visitors to SAAO, both in Cape Town and in Sutherland.
It thus appears obvious that a visitors' complex of some sort will need to be built. At this time there are few answers and many questions, such as:
There are some certainties that can lead to answers to many of these questions:
The staff who are presently responsible for the various educational and outreach programmes consists of one permanent staff member and a temporary assistant. At present they can just about cope with the SEI. With the ``Friends with the Universe" running during YEAST has meant the employment of additional staff.
As mentioned earlier, the announcement of SALT also means that planning for the SAAO centre(s) will need to begin in earnest with the identification of suitable sites a priority. The experience of McDonald Observatory shows that it is best that the visitors' centre and viewing gallery be built simultaneously with SALT as this would lead to a substantial cost saving. Since the monies raised for SALT are for science and engineering, funding for the visitors' centre(s) will need to be raised independently.
The ``Starbus" facility should be seen as a `pilot' project. If results show that it is a viable means of addressing the problem of introducing science to rural communities it could be extended to national level. This would mean the involvement of the other science councils, government and the private sector.
