Nkomazi school takes second place in annual science competition

Zenzele Secondary School took second place in the finals of the annual Science School Competition at the Lowveld National Botanical Garden on Friday March 15.

Thirty learners from six schools and their teachers participated. The schools were were Ndlela, Mamabatho Mokoena, Mahashe, Takheni, Zenzele and Sitintile secondary. Ndlela took first place. In second place was Zenzele, and Takheni was third.

As part of Water Month celebrations, the Inkomati-Usuthu Catchment Management Agency (Iucma), in partnership with sector stakeholders, initiated a school science competition concept as part of the institution’s education programmes.

National Water Week is the culmination of the call by UN-Water upon all governments to take part in celebrating World Water Day on March 22. This day is about focusing the attention on the importance of water.

In response to the call, the South African government mandated a celebration of National Water Week in line with the objectives of UN-Water.
This year’s theme drew the attention to the hidden water resource that has always been important, but not fully recognised.

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Sibusiso Mkhatshwa, a teacher from Zenzele, said they were excited to achieve second place since last year they came third. “This proves that we have improved and that we have learnt from our mistakes we made last year. Before entering the competition again, we looked at the things that needed to be worked on, so we focused on improving our research and presentation. We realised that presentation and research account for 75% of the mark, and the model that we create accounts for 35%. This helped us know where to invest most of our time,” he explained.

“Each learner got a laptop, a R3 500 voucher, a laptop bag and many other items. The learners take the laptops home and this makes life easy for them when they get to university. As a teacher I received a R2 000 voucher and some other goodies.

“During the regionals they won tablets and were awarded certificates. The certificates will assist them when they apply for bursaries for water purification courses.”

Mkhatshwa said the process they used to select the learners required was not easy. He said they had to choose the best. “We chose six learners from our Grade 10, 11 and 12 classes. The process started when they were in Grade Eight. We advised them to work hard on science subjects and to improve their English skills,” he said.

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During the event, Linda Carol Zulu, the chairperson of the Iucma board, said: “This school competition was supported by the National Department of Water and Sanitation. Every year we have a theme. For this year it was Water for Peace. We then gave this theme to the learners to use while they work towards solutions in the water sector. Water is a very scarce resource due the impact of global warming and climate change. As much as it is a school competition, some of these solutions can be implemented in the future,” Zulu said.