The Iimbovane Outreach Project was amongst a flock of exhibitors that were hosted at the SANBI Harold Porter Botanical Garden and the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) on the 11th August 2016 for the annual Biodiversity Careers Expo 2016.
Learners attending the expo were introduced to a range of careers including entomology, taxonomy, horticulture, marine biology, aquaculture, nature conservation, astronomy and archeology. The Iimbovane team explained the subjects needed for a career in entomology as well as the degree options at the Stellenbosch University.
To make things more exciting, the Iimbovane exhibition offered a small competition for the learners in which they had to distinguish ants from other insets that mimic ants.
Congratulations to Qhayiya Secondary School in Hermanus and Bredasdorp High School in Bredasdorp for each having a winner.
Mr Hein Adonis, the Curriculum Advisor: Life Science for the Overberg District was very pleased with the expo and commended the Iimbovane Project’s work and exhibition by saying, “The monitoring work at the Iimbovane schools is wonderful. More Life Science educators could benefit from the methods that are used by Iimbovane to gather and process scientific data.”He also made a special request for Iimbovane to run more teacher workshops in the future.
The Iimbovane exhibit was also visited by familiar faces from schools that participate in Iimbovane such as Umyezo Wama Apile Combined School in Grabouw, Swartberg Secondary School in Caledon and Swellendam Secondary School in Swellendam.
Mlungele Nsikani, MSc student at the DST-NRF Centre for Invasion Biology and who assisted at the exhibition, encouraged learners to pursue science careers by saying “Science is exciting and you always get to work with new knowledge”.