HartRAO and SASOL revitalises the Mobile Laboratory vehicle and science awareness programme
An important and integral part of the SARAO science engagement offering was strengthened recently, when SASOL handed over a newly upgraded and customised mobile laboratorium vehicle.
The vehicle, part of a public-private-partnership to help support under-served and under-resourced schools to bolster performance in Science, Technology, and Mathematics related programmes, also underwent exterior branding and detailing for better visual presence, as well as custom compartmentalisation for better usage as a curriculum-support mobile laboratory for under-resourced schools.
The relationship between SARAO and the SASOL Foundation started in 2017 when SARAO submitted a proposal to the SASOL Inzalo Foundation, after which the HartRAO site was successful at securing a brand new fully-funded and customised vehicle for use in science awareness and outreach interventions.
The vehicle was designed for use on school premises, off-site science festivals and other outdoor contexts to demonstrate practical physics and chemistry experiments. The vehicle later became the property of SARAO, and as part of the partnership SARAO sought to incorporate and profile astronomy through various interventions that would be done with the schools. The approach was to shine a spotlight on the foundational principles and concepts that can be readily located in physics and chemistry subjects at school level.
In 2022, the programme reached its five-year review milestone and SARAO signed a new agreement document with the SASOL Foundation to take the programme forward for another five-year cycle. SARAO had replaced the previous vehicle in the year 2020 and by 2025 it was agreed that the resource needed to be revitalised. SASOL made the undertaking to work on the vehicle to ensure it gets branded and customised for conducive use towards the programme’s objectives.
Simphiwe Madlanga, SARAO Science Engagement Coordinator, accepted the vehicle on behalf of SARAO and said that the new resource will be a benefit for the science awareness work that the organisation does: “It is a unique and impactful resource which enhances the work of the Science Engagement unit of SARAO,” he said.
