St Agustine’s LEAP School, Ga Rankuwa, 09 May 2018

(63 Learners)
This is another school that is close to my heart as they had won the competition last year. The other connection is the fact that Mr Grant Nupen, my previous Headmaster from St Alban’s College Days, is working closely with this school as part of the LEAP organisation.
I request a table and a power source and what arrived was benches for all. I discovered that some of the learners were part of the demonstrations from last year and again I had to come up with new ideas to cover the same concepts.
It was encouraging to interact with the learners who were clearly on a much higher level than most schools, especially in rural areas. The additional work that is being provided to the learners is clearly having an impact. Before the tables arrived I had an in depth discussion with a handful of learners around dinosaurs and the origins of birds. I am confident that the small group understood the concept of isotopes of Carbon and the half-life of Carbon 14 and how this can be used for carbon dating. It is these types of discussions that are very fulfilling.
The points of the compass problem was used to highlight the importance of “doing science” and being on the ground rather than having book knowledge. I am pleased to report that this was an eye opener for the teachers in attendance as we had a lengthy discussion around this topic afterwards.