Three learners of Drakenstein will represent the region at the International Science Fair (ISF) in Johannesburg in October.
Rebekah Cupido (Brige House) won a gold medal and Joshua Riddle (Bridge House) and Bridgette O’Rein (Klein Nederburg) both won silver medals at the Eskom Expo for Young Scientists in Stellenbosch.
Twenty seven learners from Drakenstein were part of the 276 learners who displayed their research projects at the expo in Stellenbosch.
Twenty learners represented Bridge House, six represented New Orleans Secondary and one learner represented Klein Nederburg Secondary.
This competition is the largest of its kind at school level in South Africa with learners participating in 35 regions nationwide.
Rebekah won the award for the best project in the medical field conducted by a learner from Gr 7-9.
Bridgette’s award was for the best project in the Civil Engineering category. She was also part of the national team in 2015.
Joshua won a silver medal and submitted the best research project addressing environmental sciences and management thereof, also in the Gr 7-9 age group.
From each region a number of projects are selected to participate in the national competition in October. Learners may be selected at this event to further represent South Africa at other international competitions.
Dr Trevor van Louw, Director of the Centre for Pedagogy in the Faculty of Education at Stellenbosch University (SUNCEP) says that the centre is very excited about the entries, especially about new schools participating for the first time this year.”
“It was truly inspiring to see so much enthusiasm among the youngsters,” Dr van Louw said.
“We hope that more learners from more schools will participate next year. Since research projects have to be conducted as part of the school curriculum, schools may easily enter these projects in this competition.”
According to Erika Hoffman, the chairperson of Eskom Expo for Young Scientists in the Stellenbosch region, the projects were assessed by about 80 teachers, lecturers and post graduate students from various faculties at Stellenbosch University, as well as a few members from organisations such as iTembaLabs and the South African Weather Service.
“It is a valuable opportunity for teachers to gain experience in guiding and assessing research by acting as a judge at this competition,” she said.
During the event, Reddi Yashren from Spaceteq (Denel) intrigued the participants with robotics and unmanned aerial vehicles, also known as UAVs or drones.
