Scifest Africa, South Africa's national science festival, is held in Grahamstown and hosts more than 45,000 visitors every year. But in between all the lectures, exhibitions, workshops, talks and debates going on during the week, you could be excused for feeling a little bewildered!
Scifest Africa, South Africa's national science festival, is held in Grahamstown and hosts more than 45,000 visitors every year. But in between all the lectures, exhibitions, workshops, talks and debates going on during the week, you could be excused for feeling a little bewildered!
Grocott's Mail decided to take a look around at what is on offer to make things a bit easier for you.
Apart from our articles on different events and exciting innovations on offer, we also took our video camera along on an outing to show you one day of Scifest at the Monument.
Lauren Flynn, a fourth-year Journalism student and our presenter for the day, navigated the excitable mass of students and found a couple of interesting sights to share with you.
One of the most interesting finds of the day included the SciQuest mobile laboratory, fully equipped for the Grade 10, 11 and 12 science curriculum. It sports various different scientific and mathematical models to be used in classrooms all around the country. "What we do is give schools in the rural areas which do not have laboratories," said Thulani Masulu of Maths Centre, a mathematics, science, technology and entrepreneurship education NGO. "If some teachers don't know how to do the experiments, we will assist them."
Lauren also met a friendly robot called Pulse (Public Understanding of Laser Science and Engineering), who is a project of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research to raise awareness and enthusiasm for maths, science, technology and engineering among young children.
