Schools, sustainability and smelling of skin

I actually played down the numbers from yesterday; we managed to entertain approx. 400 children in shifts at a school in Accra from 8 am - 1pm and then a theatre group in the afternoon. Both were very different audiences and highlighted some of the challenges of teaching science in Ghana. 


The international school children were interested and quick to ask questions but had limited knowledge of the Universe and were excited to make constellations and Apollo Command modules. At the theatre group it was an entirely different story and we had to quickly adapt our dry presentation to overcome the language barrier and the fact it was the middle of the day. 


So we used drama to recreate the big bang, black holes and the solar system (with balloons!) and went on to have a much livelier session. This gave us an insight into how an outreach tour to rural communitites would be like though - language problems, limited knowledge of astronomy and a mix of ages and abilities. 


Which leads me nicely on to what will happen next. There is a real appetite for astronomy in Ghana and science in more general so it seems a shame to leave it here. With the Institute of Physics opening a centre and training science teachers as well as interest in planetaria from other West African countries we're starting to think about what to do next.It was great meeting the University students and getting the infrastructure in place for further study but to have an impact, astronomy and an interest in science needs to reach children before they give up on science at school or choose their A-level equivalents. 


So watch this space and if you've enjoyed this blog and have some ideas or interests in this area then please get in touch. 


And finally, the smelling of skin...this happened in Akwidaa at the coast where an eight year old who had grabbed my Obruni (white person) hand and subtly tried to smell me to see if I was different. She then took one step further and tried rubbing her arm onto mine to see if the colour would transfer to my arm. She looked quite bemused when I stayed the same colour...ah well. 


So adieu, goodbye and see you all soon for more adventures. 


Laura

Cape Coast Craziness

Location: Cape Coast University

Audience: 200+ students

Timings: sunset - 9.30 ish

Programme: Videos, interactive quiz, star gazing

Skies: Clear!

Cape Coast University ended up being a hastily prepared event. The student in charge of organising the evening decided to deputise to someone else 3 hours in advance so we arrived at CC with no audience, a common room to set up in (where the students were relaxing in front of films already), and no discernable physics society presence. 

Obviously the best way to counter this was to migrate to the amphitheatre outside in the middle of the halls (a cross between an American jail and a London estate with the same amount of heckling) and set up the projector on a wall, go round with a megaphone and play dodgy highlife/ crank music at full blast through the magical appearance of some HUGE speakers. It did the trick as we played a galaxy video and by the end of 10 minutes there were more than 200 students. 

It was raucous and lively as we asked lots of questions and they started getting into it by throwing out answers and equally perplexing questions. For me the highlight came when I was using Stellarium (Google it - it's free software that shows you the sky at night and you can set the location, time and direction) and I pointed out on the screen where Mars was and then pointed to it in the sky and the place almost erupted! It was like Essien had scored the winner in the World Cup for the Black Stars. It was quite a mind shift to discover that the students hadn't connected one of our planets with the red circle in the night sky (if you haven't seen it then defintely have a look)!

We then headed out to view the stars and the Moon on the athletic field (where coincidentally there were prayer meetings going on and lots of people speaking in tongues and dancing around...very bizarre!! The irony of science and religion colliding was not lost on us). We decided not to leave the telescope with the students this time as the support and infrastructure was not in place to make use of it.

As it turned out, we've donated the telescope and two pairs of binoculars instead to the new science centre at Ada, which was opened today by Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell (President of the UK Institute of Physics). They are training science teachers and established a large resource centre to offer astronomy GCSE so it seemed a much better choice for now. 

Finally, last weekend we also tried to do a similar talk at the University of Legon outside Accra but it fell through at the last minute due to power (lack of), technicians (too tired to help) and generators (too expensive to hire) not to mention a lack of audience. Instead Emmanuel (who works at the planetarium and is a student at Legon) stood outside the halls encouraging students to come and look at the stars and we set up the telescopes for them to look through. This turned out to be a grand method and we actually reached well over a hundred students and were able to have lots of exciting discussions about life on other planets etc, which we wouldn't have been able to have otherwise. 

It was a busy few days, but I feel we've achieved one of our aims of stimulating the students to become interested and encouraging the professors to start astronomy degrees. The next stage is to engage younger students who wish to study science and hope that the infrastructure is there by the time they reach university age. There's a lot we can say about STEM skills being underrated by the younger generation in Ghana - the same problems as in the UK but the country starts needing to train more of it's own if it doesn't want to rely on foreigners coming in to run, for example, the huge oil fields they've found offshore. 

Next post...how to entertain 120 6 year olds...

Success at first University Lecture

Location: KNUST (Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology)

Audience: 100 students, 4 lecturers, 2 Profs

Timings: 5 ish – 7 ish

Programme: Introducing astronomy, video about our galaxy and how it was formed, protecting the planet we have (incl. experiment), careers in science and Stellarium.

Skies: Cloudy

We drove to Ghana’s second largest city Kumasi on Tuesday for an evening programme at Kumasi University. The Provost of Science, Prof. Aboagye welcomed us to campus and gave us a tour of the lecture hall where the talk was to take place.

Bearing in mind it was the middle of exams and we’d arranged the programme in two days we were a bit unsure as to the turnout we’d get. We needn’t have worried as the Physics society and the Provost had plastered campus with posters heralding the arrival of a UK astronomy and astrophysics team *ahem*. When we started at 5 ish there were about 40 students and more filed in until there were about 100 students in the lecture hall.

The atmosphere was very relaxed until we started asking big questions like, “How many of you think there is life on other planets?” at which point it started to liven up and then by the time we got to creating a cloud in a bottle (experiment you can do at home detailed below!) the room was buzzing.

The first telescope (kindly donated by the Grimstone Foundation) was presented to the physics society students and they said they now have the impetus to set up an Astronomy Society open to anyone on campus. We tried to take the telescopes for a spin but alas it was exceedingly cloudy and had to settle for training the students in how to use them.

It was tough to set up but one student reminded us that in Ghana it is one step at a time and we’ve contributed to our initial aim of inspiring more Ghanaians to take an interest in astronomy and training the students so they can set up a club of their own.

Next stop is Cape Coast University and in the meantime we’ve been arranging visits to schools and community groups as well as preparing for a visit to Ghana from the President of the UK Institute of Physics, Dame Professor Jocelyn Bell Burnell. There is hopefully going to be some collaboration between the IoP’s work here in creating science centres and the planetarium but that’s still to be decided.

And finally we’ve embarked on a mission to get Star beer to sponsor the planetarium – watch this space!

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Cloud in a bottle – create our atmosphere in your own home!

Ingredients: 1 plastic bottle, matches, strong hands

Fill a plastic bottle (500ml or smaller works quite well) with 1 – 2 cm of water. Light a match and drop it straight into the bottle and seal the top. Now squeeze the bottle four or five times until the air in the bottle turns opaque. You’ve made your own cloud!

The physics behind it: Smoke particles from the match act in the same way as dust particles in the atmosphere. As you squeeze the bottle, the volume of the bottle decreases, the pressure increases and the temperature inside the bottle increases. As the water molecules turn to vapour they stick to the smoke particles in the bottle and form clouds.

The Moon

Taken from Accra on Sunday 25th April at approx. 9pm through a Celestron 9.25 with digital SLR attachment!

We have the technology!

A quick update for you all. We made it! We passed through customs and managed to get all the equipment to the planetarium. As with everything here, plans change and we've spent the past two days setting up meetings and events - unfortunately not to the original timetable but it's getting there. We're just about to embark on the first leg of the tour to Kumasi but we've managed to squeeze in testing the inflatable dome and taking photos of the Moon (sadly no pictures due to internet connection but maybe soon...). Hopefully a fuller update to follow when we're in Kumasi.

Ash stops play

For those of you expecting the start of the tour...unlucky...we're grounded for the time being and hoping to fly on Friday but until then I'll be writing a post instead for those of you in the audience who gave up on physics at school. Those of you who said no to neutrons, renounced science and left it to the fusty's in lab coats. 

To you I dedicate this blog and to you I say look once more. Here are five reasons to think again:

1) Physics is beautiful

Take this image of the bug nebula. Seriously, how visually stunning is that. Yes, it's falsely coloured. Yes, it's further away than our Solar System and therefore we're likely never to go. But wow. This should be hanging in the Tate Modern instead of International Klein Blue (a blue square in case you were wondering...).

2) Physics explains a lot of stuff

Why rainbows form.

Why you "stick" to the Earth and don't whiz off into space.

Why TV's work and why you can walk on custard (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN2D5y-AxIY)

3) Physics makes your life easier

Physics has implications beyond the laboratory. There's the story of the creation of the internet - at CERN (the research facility in Geneva). Pretty much everything on the NASA spacecraft has filtered down to be used by us; smoke detectors, shock absorbers in trainers, tyre rubber recycling, fans in laptop computers, sunglasses, the list goes on and on...

4) Physics has some great characters

Like Newton who stuck a ruler in his eye to see if it was spherical or Patrick Moore who wears a monocle...in the 21st Century. Wild hair and wild lives; people who have irradiated themselves, electrocuted themselves, smoked pipes to induce discoveries, expanded their brains to unlock extra dimensions and all in the name of science. 

5) Physics is philosophy

It's a bold claim but leave aside those pesky equations for now. How many other subjects encourage you to ponder the meaning of life? 

What happens if I fall into a black hole? How will it feel?

How can 100 trillion neutrinos pass through my thumb every second?

What is outside the Universe? [Don't think about this too hard or your brain will explode]

So in a nutshell (did you know the whole of the human race could fit into a space the size of a sugar cube...we're just a lot of empty space really) this is to inspire you to follow us on our science tour and take part in the experiments or just gaze up at the stars and have a think...

Hopefully I'll be writing to you next from Ghana!

Ingredients

• One inflatable planetarium
• Two nutty British people
• Three Telescopes donated to the cause
• Four planets visible at the moment
• Five pairs of binoculars
• Six activity packs
• Seven degrees of latitude in Accra
• Eight planets in our solar system
• Nine hours on a plane
• Ten willing volunteers
• One hundred 3D spectacles
• And twenty thousand glow stars

Ghana planetarium is going on tour in T-minus 6 days! Are we packed? Do we have lots of science equipment with us? Are you ready to follow us as we tour round Ghana educating and inspiring people about Astronomy...

Ghana Science Project