Learners from across Mpumalanga arrived at the Siyabuswa Campus of the University of Mpumalanga to present 153 of their best efforts.
In the hopes of achieving a gold medal, one of four Eskom Special Prizes or the coveted ticket to the national finals at October’s Eskom Expo for Young Scientists International Science Fair (ISF) in Boksburg.
On August 26 the Nkangala Regional Eskom Expo celebrated their 19th edition of the Expo for Young Scientists. An improvement on last year’s effort, explains Regional Science Fair Director, Dr. Fourten Khumalo,
“It is because of the amount of work we have put in as a committee. We have been going through training, particularly with teachers. We also had a special session to train the judges before this final event.”
Due to venue size constraints, Dr. Khumalo and his passionate team had already staged two mini-expos before this regional final, where 170 and 192 projects were shown and whittled down to 153 on display on the day.
Dr. Khumalo is very passionate about his role in the expo, having founded the Nkangala Regional Eskom Expo in 1998, as is evidenced by the expert organisation and the commitment from the teachers and high quality of the projects on display. He sees this as a highly beneficial project to be involved in.
He explains,
“I can say that it changes the lives of people, including myself – I think I have become a better professional through working with Eskom Expo for many years. If you look at the judges, I think a quarter of them are past participants, now they are in universities, some of them are already teaching around here, and they come and plough back. We have a lot of scientists who have come up from participating in Eskom Expo, so this is where career choices are made, so it’s a very good platform. It needs to be nurtured going forward.”
Drawn from past participants, the teachers at the district’s schools, local Eskom facilities, local businesses and the student body of the host university campus, the judges had a difficult task choosing the winners and selecting the 14 gold medal winners who will go on to compete at the ISF.
Eskom Expo Best Energy Efficiency Award winners Tsholofelo Mpholefole & Tswelelo Mokonyane, Grade 10 learners from Khamane MST School, believe that the Eskom Expo is important because,
“It’s giving learners opportunities to share their creativity in science.”
Tswelelo shared that she loves science, because
“I’m curious. With science, I find a lot of information, like how things are made, where things come from, things like that. Science is amazing.”
Their project examined and demonstrated the concepts of microbial fuel cells, which draws energy from a chemical reaction with bacteria, and salt water energy, which uses another chemical reaction to draw energy from brine.
The Eskom Expo Best Development School Project went to Sindi Matlaila, a grade 12 learner also from Khamane MST School, for the project entitled, ‘Soil Lamp’, which powers a light bulb using the energy from a chemical reaction using soil.
The Eskom Expo Best Female Award went to Ayesha Mansoor, a Middleburg Muslim School leaner in grade 9, whose project explored creating washing powder from egg shells. She was horrified at the smell after the chemical reaction, so used lavender powder to give it a more pleasant aroma.
A third Eskom Special Prize for Khamane MST School learners’ projects was the Eskom Expo Best Energy Prize awarded to grade 11 learner Lerato Sithole for his exploration of the use of artificial coal in energy generation, in his project ‘Koma Coal Plant’.
At the end of a long day of sharing knowledge and nerve-wracking judging, the learners were jubilant to see their peers up on stage after being awarded bronze, silver and gold medals, which will surely encourage them to continue pursuing knowledge in the spheres of science, technology, engineering, mathematics and innovation.
