Show physics is fun and important
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support the teaching of physics !!! Travel to outlying schools ..... For more information
Overview Scientists, educators and administrators
have teamed up in an exciting programme of physics outreach, aimed at disadvantaged
high school learners. The project flows from the USA-NSF funded schools outreach
program (QuarkNet) of Columbia University and the University of Pittsburgh,
in which teachers from South Africa were sponsored to attend workshops in
the USA. The programme is based around a mobile physics laboratory, accompanied
by scientists, teachers and students equipped to run a varied physics program
and provide teacher support. The physics program contains visually exciting
physics demonstrations, hands-on exploratorium activities and also team based
project experiments, all targeted at high school learners. Additional sessions
planned as teacher support will be aimed developing simple resources and providing
training for physics demonstrations, and optimizing the use of the local
facilities at each school. There are also informal sessions where the learners
interact with the young higher degree students. The project is well on its
way to becoming sustainable. It has been named the Science Emasondosondo.
The project derives strong participation and leadership from the Quarknet
program. It is administered from the Gauteng Education Department and housed
at the Newtown Science Centre. All higher degree institutions are partners
in the program, via the South African Istitute of Physics (SAIP). Currently,
it is operated from the Schonland Research Institute of Nuclear Sciecnes
at the University of the Witwatersrand.
This is the third year of the project. The first two years (2002, 2003) visited about 3% of the Gauteng schools. Here are photo-essays of the previous programms (2002, 2003). Contact : Simon H Connell
University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg, PO WITS 2050, South Africa phone (w) : +27 11 717 6928 fax (w) : +27 11 717-6932 cell : 083 765-7997 e-mail : connell@inkosi.src.wits.ac.za
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and the GPDE 
and supported by SAIP 