The Antarctic Legacy of South Africa had a successful Antarctica Day on 1 December, when South Africa’s involvement in the Antarctic was shared amongst schoolchildren. Unfortunately the V&A Waterfront had some logistical problems, hence our planned Antarctica Day celebrations had to shift to school visits instead.
In the end the day went well as we already received some requests to undertake visits to schools over the Western Cape Region. During our visits we handed out the Special Edition Antarctica Month Activity Booklets which are filled with exciting activities for children and also information and interesting facts on the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic. There is also a competition in the booklet and we are looking forward to all the entries. We also handed out sun visors branded with the ALSA logo to all the children. During our talks we asked questions and ALSA water bottles were handed out to those who gave the correct answers.
We (Anché Louw and Ria Olivier) first visited Stellenbosch Primary School, where 297 grade 4 to 6 children were totally intrigued and made a deal of relevant and stimulating comments and questions following our Antarctica Day talk. Dalubuhle Primary School in Franschhoek was also visited where children were already on holiday. However, we had some time to communicate with the educators. During the coming week activity booklets will be handed out at this school to the grade 4 to 6 learners when they return to school to fetch their end-of-year reports. ALSA would like to congratulate Dalubuhle Primary School on its 90% pass mark for 2016.
ALSA would like to thank all the schools and institutes who have contacted us regarding visits in 2016. Due to all the requests received our 2017 outreach programme will get into full swing once the schools re-open in 2017.
Anché Louw, Antarctic Legacy of South Africa, Department of Botany and Zoology, Stellenbosch University, 05 December 2016.
