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46% of getS.E.T.go! readers think that the most important benefit of South Africa’s recent participation in the Shanghai Expo, will be the raising of our country’s science & technology profile on the global stage. |
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38% opted for “sharing of international best practices in maths & science education”; and 15% for “building an international network of contacts”. |
Almost 21 000 learners from around South Africa and SADC countries participated in the Science Olympiad this year.
For some scientists, the next best thing to a trip to Mars is an expedition to the Earth’s driest deserts. Earlier this year a diverse group of 26 people gathered at the Gobabeb Field Station in the Namib Desert for such a mission: to study those rare life forms that survive under extreme conditions.
The expedition, called “Spaceward Bound: Namibia”, focused on hypoliths, which are bacteria that live under light-coloured, translucent stones. It forms part of the Spaceward Bound NASA programme, which brings together scientists and educators in the study of extreme environments (usually very hot or very cold deserts) where they search for and investigate microscopic organisms that exist here. Their knowledge and experience is then used to design research methods and equipment that will look for life on Mars.
The mission of Spaceward Bound is to train the next generation of space explorers through authentic fieldwork so that they can take that experience back to their classrooms. During the Namib expedition, students and science teachers from the US, Australia, South Africa and Namibia were inspired to embark on their own voyages of scientific discovery.
SAASTA sponsored two journalists and a videographer to accompany the mission and produce communication products and educational material relating to it. Four members of the University of the Western Cape’s Spaceward Bound Team were subsequently interviewed on the SAfm radio show Science Matters (Thursdays at 21:00) and a number of articles appeared in the local media.
The videographer produced a 15-minute documentary that profiles the cutting-edge scientific research while promoting the scientists as career role models. Fact sheets on careers in science, extremophiles, cyanobacteria and more have also been produced and are available through the SAASTA website.
Most importantly, the Spaceward Bound expedition has resulted in an agreement between the principal investigator, Professor Don Cowan of the University of the Western Cape and Dr Chris McKay of NASA Ames (the research and development organisation that develops the technologies that make NASA missions possible). The parties have agreed in principle to conduct further field research in the Namib Desert in April 2012.
Cowan has also been invited to join an international consortium headed by NASA, which will submit a funding application to build a “Martian rover”. This rover will identify and characterise biological soil crusts in desert environments.
For more details of the expedition visit the NASA Spaceward Bound website
The Spaceward Bound group at the Gobabeb Station in the Namib Desert.
Some 26 scientists, students, teachers and journalists from around the globe joined
the programme in April this year to explore and document organisms that are able to
survive at the edge of life in this desert environment.
A videographer documents the teachers’ and scientists’ research in the Namib Desert.
Photo: NASA Ames Research Center / Matthew F Reyes
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Professor Don Cowan of the University of the Western Cape, on the look-out for hypoliths under the light-coloured stones of the desert. |