Zambia Schools Project, January 2009
From 12 to 30 January 2009, Cosmos Education ran a project in Lusaka, Zambia.
Carol Lo (Electronic Engineer, UK), Matt Landreman (Physics PhD Student, US), and Damian Smith (Engineer, UK) divided their time between two schools there, and concentrated their efforts on activities related to Physics, Maths and Engineering. Theo Banda (VP, Cosmos Education Zambia) coordinated this and brought in Mark Zulu (Mechanical Engineering Student, University of Zambia) to help in school visits and to be a positive role model.
Groups of students designed their own bridges using pasta |
The intention behind running the project this way was to maintain a presence for enough time to get to know the teachers and students. Hopefully, with an extended and personal project, the impact will be long-lasting, and everyone will feel comfortable raising questions and asking for help.
Students count in different bases |
The two schools we worked with were Munali Boys and Lusaka High School. After discussions with teachers at both of these schools, we agreed to provide a variety of different types of assistance. These included hands-on science activities with groups of students, providing guidance to students with science homework problems, and helping teachers in lessons.
As always, there is a focus on fun, but also on relevance - We always reinforce with the students the idea that the science and mathematics they learn in school is applicable in the real world - whether directly through work in engineering, or indirectly through the ability to analyse and think critically.
Zambian high schools currently take half of the students in the morning, and half in the afternoon. By running activities for students in the part of the day when they don't have lessons, we were able to expand their educational experience without interfering with their progress through the curriculum. We are in the process of writing descriptions of each of these activities, and are making them available online on the resources page. The titles were:
- Pasta Bridges: an engineering challenge
- Parallax: finding the distance to the stars
- Binary and Logic: human computers and learning to count again
- Electromagnetics: how electricity makes motors work
- Surveying: using trigonometry to measure tall buildings from the ground
- Cryptography: how to write and read secret messages
- Satellites and Orbits: the physics and engineering of modern telecommunications
- Sound: measuring its speed and understanding the doppler effect
- Kinematics of ballistic cars: demonstrating the explanatory and predictive powers of science
- Gases: chemistry, physics, and the mostly invisible
- Shadows: measuring the planet Earth using trigonometry
Proving that Carbon Dioxide extinguishes flames |
We also ran drop-in homework help sessions for those wanting a hand with maths and physics problems they've not been able to understand. These proved very popular as the students normally do at least some of their homework at school, so could come and ask if they got stuck. Although most of the discussions were related to current homework, quite a few students had questions on previous parts of the curriculum with which they were not comfortable.
The mathematics lessons we helped with were on Mensuration (areas and volumes), Variation (proportional and inversely proportional relationships), and Earth Geometry. This was at the request of the mathematics teachers who wanted to see some different ideas of how to present what can be rather dry subjects.
The feedback from both schools was very positive, and we will try to run more programmes in a similar vein.
Students examine the effects of atmospheric pressure on a soft-drinks can |
In Kenya, Cosmos Education Kenya is Registered Society No. 26710.
In the United States, Cosmos Education is a Project of The Tides Center, a 501(c)3 non‑profit organisation.
In England and Wales, Cosmos Education UK is Registered Charity No. 1100278
Cosmos Education Zambia is registered under the Societies Act in the Republic of Zambia, Registration No. ORS/102/35/3017.