STEM Curriculum support educator workshop and HartRAO facility tour

A total of 20 educators were hosted at HartRAO with activities that included a formal presentation about the DSI, the NRF, SARAO and radio astronomy in South Africa and beyond. They were taken on a tour of the facility, and shown the various research instruments and infrastructure on the site, including those used for Geodesy research.

An onsite workshop was undertaken on 23 September 2024 at HartRAO, as part of a follow-up intervention with the Department of Basic Education.

Simphiwe Madlanga, SARAO Science Engagement Coordinator, held a workshop in Komani, Eastern Cape in July 2024 and based on the success of that, a field trip was arranged for a different group of educators to travel from Eastern Cape to HartRAO.

A total of 20 educators were hosted at HartRAO with activities that included a formal presentation about the DSI, the NRF, SARAO and radio astronomy in South Africa and beyond. They were taken on a tour of the facility, and shown the various research instruments and infrastructure on the site, including those used for Geodesy research.

To close off the day’s activities, there were also some fun had outside the HartRAO Visitor’s Centre; unpacking the analemmatic sundial, how it works and the relationship with the position of the Sun, the motion/s of planet Earth and finally a demonstration on the Whisper dishes and the importance of the parabolic shape of the dishes used. The educators were wowed by the distinction between radio dishes and satellite dishes and also the distinction between radio waves and soundwaves.

The educators benefitted from being in close proximity to the facility and it’s scientific offering, practical demonstrations of concepts and phenomena outside the visitor’s centre and a tour of the facility so that they could see up-close and in real-time the type of instruments and infrastructure used for radio astronomy research and Geodesy. There was a strong focus on demystifying scientific concepts and dispelling misconceptions that come about in the course of educators using textbooks that illustrate phenomena in 2-D and often in black and white. The workshop aimed to bring the visualisation elements and to provide the educators with a chance to have first-hand and hands-on experience of the concepts and related research tools.