SARAO News

The Square Kilometre Array conducted an outreach activity at  the Siyamukela High School and the ArcelorMittal Science Centre in Newcastle, KwaZulu-Natal on 22 May 2017, and participated in the Zululand Festival (Zulfest) from 24 to 27 May 2017.

SKA was represented by were Namhla Mabombo, a Junior Systems Engineer in the Digital Backend Unit, and Nkululeko Qwabe, a Software Engineer in the AVN unit, both based in the Cape Town office.

The team gave a presentation to two different groups of science learners at Siyamukela High. The content of the presentation included an overview of the SKA project, the career journey of the SKA representatives, different careers that exist at SKA and career opportunities. The learners received the presentation positively, and the educators were very grateful to have SKA talking to the learners about fields that some of them did not know that they even existed.

After the presentations at Siyamukela High School, the team headed to the ArcelorMittal Science Centre. The team also conducted workshops to learners from at Sipheni Primary School, Mbalenhle Primary School, Bethamoya High School and Ikhwezi High School in Newcastle.

From 24 to 26 May 2017, the team held exhibitions and more workshops with different schools at the University of Zululand Science Centre in Richards Bay, as part of the Zululand Festival. On 27 May 2017 an exhibition was held at the Boardwalk Mall in Richards Bay where the target audience was members of the public.