You don't need fancy equipment to teach science – that's the message from retired Rhodes physics lecturer and speaker at Scifest Africa's Toys from trash talk, Richard Grant.
You don't need fancy equipment to teach science – that's the message from retired Rhodes physics lecturer and speaker at Scifest Africa's Toys from trash talk, Richard Grant.
Using coke cans, tin foil and other household items, Grant has been teaching Scifest students about basic Physical science concepts.
“I created this workshop because very little practical work is being done in disadvantaged communities due to lack of access to equipment,” said Grant.
“I want to encourage teachers to do practical demonstrations which don’t require you to rely on fancy equipment”.
In the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) 2013 paper by Fabrice Murtin, one of the major factors lowering the quality of South African education system is little investment in learning materials for disadvantaged schools.
Grant said that he understands why teachers would be hesitant to try this way of teaching.
“It could be seen as an insult to have to use a Coke can to teach. But I think showing that an experiment can be easily reproduce shows the learner that it is easy to understand,” he said.
Grant presented various experiments to 13 science students from Dimanda Senior Secondary School in Ngqeleni.
Cynthia Ngcobo, a teacher at Dimanda, said that the workshop was very useful.
“We come from the rural areas where there is very little equipment or no equipment at all. Seeing these experiments being produced so easily is amazing and the kids are really enjoying the show,” she said.
“I think it is the teacher’s job to make the lesson interesting. Students imagine science as an umlungu (white person) standing in front of a chalk board covered in indecipherable equations and that can be true but science is more than that,” Grant said.
“But making it practical and interesting makes the learning effortless”.
