Workshop on Unlocking the Potential for Low-Cost Teaching in Third World Countries

Abstract

The sciences, i.e. Biology, Chemistry and Physics, together with Mathematics are regarded as difficult by students, especially in third World Countries, with the consequences that the number of students taking them was relatively small, courses are expensive to stage, students get low grades, and the number of students embarking on careers in these subjects is small whereas the needs for indigenous scientists, engineers, technicians and medical practitioners are huge. A Workshop was organised at ICPAC 2012 to highlight and address the problems and to promote “hands-on” Chemistry and “live” Chemistry via multimedia resources. In order that these resources can be available to both urban and rural students, the participants were introduced to the Chemistry Aid solar classrooms whereby rural students could gain access to IT and modern teaching and learning via low cost solar equipment which could be used both for schools and in their communities. Other modern technology was also demonstrated which could enable on-line resources to be customised for science curricula. To enable students to realise that Chemistry is all around them, low cost resources and experiments using chemicals available in kitchen and supermarkets were demonstrated in an interactive session. The practicalities of making the new resources available via grants and sponsorship were part of a “brainstorming” session. Feedback from participants was very positive about solar classrooms and “hands-on” Kitchen and Supermarket Chemistry using plastic equipment.