8.Somavugha 26-05

Grade 9 (127)

The school was a challenge to find. I had turned one intersection too soon but was not complaining as I was able to enjoy viewing the local architecture. I also find it interesting how locals give directions. When asking someone they said something to the effect of turning right at the pink house, after the car wash turn left onto the tar road…. There is no such thing as street names. In fact my GPS did not even show many of the streets creating the impression that I was driving through the veld. Chickens, goats, sheep, cows, dogs, etc are common place with women brushing the dirt paving in front of their houses. There is no such thing as lawns on the pavements let alone around the houses. It is just red dirt everywhere.

It was a chilly morning with many of the learners moaning about having to stand outside. Despite this they soon got very involved. Sadly the school had not pre-ordered electricity and the fan could not be used. Fortunately the wind was blowing which provided sufficient airflow for the turbine to work. I was not able to challenge them with the now traditional experiment but included Bernoulli’s paper experiment together with a few extras.

There is little doubt that the learners had been taught the basics but Mr Mangamye informed me that the demonstrations contextualised much of the work that is done in the Grade 9 curriculum. This is important if the learners want to go further one day. The basics are important but they also need to apply their knowledge and be able to think.

A very simple example of this is during the dynamo experiment the light bulb glows when the handle is turned. If there is a large group I tend to add a small motor with a propeller blade on the end to that there is a visual output for all to see when the dynamo handle is turned. One of the questions that I pose is where did the energy come from? The standard response is that energy comes from the sun. When I hold the equipment up to the sun they realise that there is a problem with their statement. With a little bit of prompting I am able to include the flow of energy from my hand, from my body, from the food that I eat, from the plants/animals and finally from the sun.

The next step is to break the word photosynthesis into photo (light) and synthesis (to make). For man the penny drops and hopefully they are able to transfer this to other subject areas.