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SAEON Graduate Student Network gears up for a series of workshops
- Bernard Coetzee
The SAEON Graduate Student Network's Interim Committee had their first official meeting on 10 February 2006 at the SAEON National Office in Pretoria. The meeting focused on organisational details for the first student workshop, which was held on 29 March, directly after the SAEON Summit.
The Graduate Student Network's constitution was also reviewed and updated during an assessment of the constitutional objectives. Excellent progress is being made on all fronts and the committee was particularly excited by the first "inaugural" workshop. Encouragingly, the response has been equally enthusiastic from the Graduate Student Network members.
The second committee meeting is scheduled for September 2006 at CSIR Durban, to discuss the second SAEON Graduate Student Network workshop to be held at the Ndlovu Node, Phalaborwa, in November 2006, as well as the SAEON International Student Symposium. The latter, which is to be held in late 2007, will undoubtedly be demanding to organise, but the Interim Committee is up for the challenge to make a success of the event.
For more information, or to become a member, visit the SAEON Graduate Student Network website at Graduate Student Network
SAEON brought in to judge wetlands poster competition
It says much for the status of SAEON's education outreach programmes that its coordinator, Sibongile Mokoena, was called on by the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) to judge its Wetlands poster competition.
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SAEON's Sibongile Mokoena judging posters in a
competition that formed part of a drive by the Agricultural Research
Council to raise awareness about World Wetlands Day
(Picture © Christa Lombard@ARC) |
The ARC's Institute for Soil, Climate and Water launched a poster competition, with the theme Wetlands and Livelihoods, to raise awareness among Grade 6 & 7 learners from schools in and around Pretoria about World Wetlands Day (28 February). A total of 329 entries were received from 22 schools. Approximately 300 people attended the awards ceremony.
Sibongile, one of a panel of three judges, was the only educator on board and gave remarks on behalf of the judges. On why some schools did better than others, Sibongile had definite ideas: "The key factor here is the teacher. Some teachers use the competition as an opportunity to teach. They discuss the theme and provide the learners with background knowledge. On the other hand there are those teachers who simply tell the learners to do a poster on wetlands when the children haven't a clue of what it is all about. It is not difficult to see the difference when judging the posters."
According to Sibongile it was also obvious that better resourced schools presented artwork of higher quality. "The level of creativity, insight and quality of work is much higher in these schools," she said, "but posters depicting a high level of understanding were received from schools with limited resources, again confirming the critical role of the teacher."
Sibongile regards it as a great opportunity for SAEON to have been involved in this project. "The ARC is one of SAEON's most important stakeholders, and the poster competition was an opportunity to interact with the ARC and to extend the networking to other stakeholders," she says.
The winning posters were displayed at the SAEON Summit.
Announcement of Socio-Ecosystems Symposium
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Re-organisation and management of complex social-ecological systems: global and southern African perspectives
You are invited to attend the following:
The Resilience Alliance together with an emergent southern African complex adaptive systems group will present a one day symposium on 28 April 2006 in Tshwane/Pretoria.
To register
Prospective delegates are requested to register before 25 April by e-mailing Magriet van Wyk at MvWyk@csir.co.za or phoning her on 012 841 2238.
A registration fee of R 150.00 per person, payable on arrival, will be levied to cover costs.
Download the programme and directions/map.
