August 2003 — Applications

Print this article

Click here to receive your FREE subscription to T.H.E. Journal

Mobile Science Center Brings High-Tech Experimentation to Remote Parts of South Africa

It may not be a proven fact that technology can help improve education, but according to "e-Learning: Putting a World-Class Education at the Fingertips of all Children," a U.S. Department of Education report (online at www.ed.gov/Technology/elearning/e-learning.pdf), "school improvement programs that employ technology for teaching and learning yield positive results for students and teachers." This raises the questions: What happens to students in schools that don't have access to technology? And, will such students have the same chances of competing successfully in the global economy?

Tools for Success

South Africa is currently grappling with these issues as its education system has been plagued by inequalities, as well as a deliberate and systematic separation of educational content and facilities. While many urban schools are adequately equipped, conditions in rural areas are often drastically different. Many schools don't have electricity, while most don't have computers. In addition, hundreds of classes are held in makeshift, prefabricated buildings with minimal water, insufficient textbooks, inadequate desks and chairs, and often more than 60 students per teacher.

It's hard enough to simply focus in such an environment let alone give students the tools they need to succeed. Furthermore, many believe that the standard of living in South Africa depends largely on the well-being of the economy, which needs skilled and educated people to drive it. This can only be achieved through education.

Edusoft, a division of Pert Industrials, a South African-based developer and manufacturer of systems for technical training, has been involved in helping South African students achieve educational experiences for several years. In conjunction with one of their clients in the engineering department of Technikon Pretoria, Edusoft recently began focusing on how to improve students' experiences with technology and science.

After months of deliberation, Peter Horszowski and his co-workers at Edusoft decided the best way to provide students with these experiences would be to build a low-cost mobile classroom that could be transported to rural schools countrywide. The goal was to enable South African teachers in some of the poorest schools to cover important curricular practicals such as graphs of motion and chemical reactions. "We wanted something that could bring 'wow' experiments to students in order to stimulate their interest and enthusiasm in areas that have very limited exposure to science of any kind," says Horszowski.

Going Mobile

The Mobile Science Center was designed as a trailer unit for an SUV. It is equipped with its own generator and lighting, as well as a series of plug outlets. It has lockable drawers, a data projector, and a DVD-equipped laptop and speaker system for eye-catching technology-based experiments and demonstrations. Edusoft also equipped it with an Xplorer datalogger and a series of PASPORT sensors from PASCO scientific, a California-based developer and manufacturer of science learning solutions. The cost of the Mobile Science Center was about $10,000, which was financed by donor organizations in collaboration with South Africa's University of the North.