Education
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Learners inspired at Science Week at UWC
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word of encouragement goes a long way. For the about 250 grade 11 and 12 learners who gathered at UWC on 2 August to learn from scholars and researchers working in the sciences, there were many such encouraging words. The day marked the start of National Science Week, an initiative of the Department of Science and Technology to inspire learners to take up science and mathematics at school and, hopefully, careers in science. Welcoming the learners, UWC Rector and Vice-Chancellor, Professor Brian O’Connell, explained that science is a way of learning new things, and that what we now know of matters like HIV/AIDS would not have been possible were it not for science and scientists. Other UWC speakers addressing the learners were Professor Michael Davies-Coleman, Dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences, and Professor Cyril Julie, who holds the National Research Foundation/First Rand Foundation Research Chair in Mathematics Education. Davies-Coleman regaled the learners with the story of the Mandelalide A, a cancer-treatment drug named after Nelson Mandela and isolated from a tunicate, a marine creature found in South African waters. This illustrates, said Davies-Coleman, that scientists don’t just wear white coats and sit in labs all day.
(From left) Professor Cyril Julie, NRF/First Rand Foundation Research Chair in Mathematics Education; with Professor Shaheed Hartley, who is the Director at the Science Learning Centre for Africa; and Professor Davies-Coleman, Dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences, at the National Science Week event.
“There are 300 different kinds of cancers,” he noted, “which means that we need to make more discoveries regarding anticancer drugs, and that is why we need more scientists in our country.” Wrapping up proceedings, Julie encouraged learners to take up maths, a subject that gets easier with regular practice and commitment. “It is not only the teachers’ responsibility to make maths interesting and fun — it is up to you,” he said. National Science week is in its 15th year, and attracts thousands of learners nationwide to workshops, science shows and exhibitions at universities.
Girls encouraged to take up maths
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Airways and founder of Sakhikamva Foundation, an organisation ugust was officially Women’s Month, and also when news dedicated to raising aviation awareness and skills development, broke that Iranian Maryam Mirzakhani, a professor at also had encouraging words, as did Dr Phethiwe Matutu, general Stanford University in the USA, had become the first manager for human capital and science platforms at the woman to win the International Mathematical Union’s Department of Science and Technology. Fields Medal, described as the Nobel Prize of mathematics. Professor Zubeida Desai, Dean of the Education Faculty, Appropriately, UWC’s Faculty of Education hosted the Women in concluded the event by telling the learners that they should Mathematics Mini-Convention in Cape Town on 9 August, National aim for the stars. This way they too could one day be pilots and Women’s Day. Girls from schools around the Western Cape were directors, she noted. addressed and inspired by five professional women who work in maths fields. These role models spoke of their personal and professional journeys in mathematics. Dr Beverley Damonse, group executive for Science Engagement and Corporate Relations at the National Research Foundation (NRF), talked of the dire shortage of women in the field. “At the NRF I am the only female executive member amongst five men, and that is why we need women like you in maths,” she said. Dr Bonita de Swardt, an astrophysicist at the University of Cape Town, provided guidance on what it took to get into a career in mathematics, and shared her love for the subject. Actuary Neo Malete told the students that passion was everything, and that where they came from did not necessarily determine their futures, a key message to come out of the day. Guest speakers and students from all over the Western Cape attending the UWC Women in Pilot Fatima Jakoet, senior first officer at South African Mathematics Mini-Convention at the Capetonian Hotel in Cape Town.