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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Century Gothic",sans-serif;color:#1F4E79"><a href="https://theconversation.com/a-new-way-to-equip-africas-science-labs-get-students-to-build-their-own-100792">https://theconversation.com/a-new-way-to-equip-africas-science-labs-get-students-to-build-their-own-100792</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Century Gothic",sans-serif;color:#1F4E79"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:13.5pt;margin-left:0in;background:white;vertical-align:baseline">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Century Gothic",sans-serif;color:#383838">“The critical importance of conducting practical experiments as well as learning theory sets science education apart from many other taught courses. The value of this practical
training is two-fold: first, it provides an in-depth understanding of the biological systems that are being studied. Second, the practice of science in industry or academia is essentially a practical undertaking. Any graduate wishing to work as a scientist
must have a good grasp of how to conduct experiments and produce data.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:13.5pt;margin-left:0in;background:white;vertical-align:baseline;outline: 0px;font-variant-ligatures: normal;font-variant-caps: normal;orphans: 2;text-align:start;widows: 2;-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;text-decoration-style: initial;text-decoration-color: initial;word-spacing:0px">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Century Gothic",sans-serif;color:#383838">While there are increasing amounts of often free educational resources available online: videos, Massive Open Online Courses, papers and tutorials, they can’t make up for students
getting their hands dirty – so to speak – at the lab bench<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:13.5pt;margin-left:0in;background:white;vertical-align:baseline;outline: 0px;font-variant-ligatures: normal;font-variant-caps: normal;orphans: 2;text-align:start;widows: 2;-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;text-decoration-style: initial;text-decoration-color: initial;word-spacing:0px">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Century Gothic",sans-serif;color:#383838">To truly understand their discipline, students need the opportunity to interact with laboratory equipment <a href="http://www.gettingpractical.org.uk/documents/EmmaWoodleyarticle.pdf"><span style="color:#557585">through
practical instruction</span></a>. Learning how to conduct experiments and deal with both the successes and failures of bench science is <a href="http://sites.nationalacademies.org/cs/groups/dbassesite/documents/webpage/dbasse_073330.pdf"><span style="color:#557585">an
important part</span></a> of developing as a scientist. The skills that students develop through practical experiments are also fundamental for progressing into successful graduate studies and research careers.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:13.5pt;margin-left:0in;background:white;vertical-align:baseline">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Century Gothic",sans-serif;color:#383838">“During the Zimbabwe LabHack teams of students from four universities, as well as local hobbyists and one high school team, demonstrated their prototypes for low cost laboratory
equipment built out of locally-available hardware.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:13.5pt;margin-left:0in;background:white;vertical-align:baseline;outline: 0px;font-variant-ligatures: normal;font-variant-caps: normal;orphans: 2;text-align:start;widows: 2;-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;text-decoration-style: initial;text-decoration-color: initial;word-spacing:0px">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Century Gothic",sans-serif;color:#383838">All the teams were interdisciplinary, which was important not only for design issues but also offered a means of building strong links for future collaborations.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:13.5pt;margin-left:0in;background:white;vertical-align:baseline;outline: 0px;font-variant-ligatures: normal;font-variant-caps: normal;orphans: 2;text-align:start;widows: 2;-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;text-decoration-style: initial;text-decoration-color: initial;word-spacing:0px">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Century Gothic",sans-serif;color:#383838">The teams were asked to design one of three types of basic but crucial lab equipment: a magnetic stirrer, a polymerase chain reaction machine, and a centrifuge.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:13.5pt;margin-left:0in;background:white;vertical-align:baseline;outline: 0px;font-variant-ligatures: normal;font-variant-caps: normal;orphans: 2;text-align:start;widows: 2;-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;text-decoration-style: initial;text-decoration-color: initial;word-spacing:0px">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Century Gothic",sans-serif;color:#383838">There was also an open challenge for students to build other types of equipment that would be used in teaching their specific discipline of science. In this category entries
included a digital microscope and a bioprocessor, which is used for culturing cells.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:13.5pt;margin-left:0in;background:white;vertical-align:baseline;outline: 0px;font-variant-ligatures: normal;font-variant-caps: normal;orphans: 2;text-align:start;widows: 2;-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;text-decoration-style: initial;text-decoration-color: initial;word-spacing:0px">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Century Gothic",sans-serif;color:#383838">Each team was supplied with an Arduino kit, a single-board microcontroller that allows the equipment to be programmable. Apart from that they were self-funded and used easily
available local resources. No team spent more than $100 on their final designs – a clear demonstration of how innovative thinking can produce highly inventive, working prototypes.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:13.5pt;margin-left:0in;background:white;vertical-align:baseline;outline: 0px;font-variant-ligatures: normal;font-variant-caps: normal;orphans: 2;text-align:start;widows: 2;-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;text-decoration-style: initial;text-decoration-color: initial;word-spacing:0px">
<span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Century Gothic",sans-serif;color:#383838">The teams also participated in a range of workshops hosted by local tech companies, which exposed students to emerging technologies like 3D printing and 3D scanning. Having
these companies present their working models for tech-driven job creation in Zimbabwe also illustrated the possibilities of creating tech start-ups for possible future career choices.”</span><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Century Gothic",sans-serif;color:#1F4E79"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-ZA" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Century Gothic",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-ZA">Ina Smith<br>
</span></b><span lang="EN-ZA" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Century Gothic",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-ZA">Project Manager:
<a href="http://africanopenscience.org.za/"><span style="color:#0563C1">African Open Science Platform</span></a>
<br>
Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf)<br>
<a href="https://blog.doaj.org/2016/09/07/the-doaj-ambassadors-biographies/"><span style="color:#0563C1">DOAJ Ambassador, Southern Africa Region</span></a><br>
<a href="https://loy2016blog.wordpress.com/"><span style="color:#0563C1">LIASA Librarian of the Year 2016</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-ZA" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Century Gothic",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-ZA"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://orcid.org/"><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Century Gothic",sans-serif;color:#338CAF;text-decoration:none"><img border="0" width="16" height="16" id="Picture_x0020_1" src="cid:image001.gif@01D42E4A.170295D0" alt="http://orcid.org/sites/default/files/images/orcid_16x16(1).gif"></span></a><span lang="EN-ZA" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Century Gothic",sans-serif;color:#1F4E79">
<a href="http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9710-3668"><span style="color:#0563C1">http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9710-3668
</span></a></span><u><span style="color:#0563C1"><o:p></o:p></span></u></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-ZA" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Century Gothic",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-ZA">Switchboard: +27 12 349 6600
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-ZA" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Century Gothic",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-ZA">Tel: +27 12 349 6641
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-ZA" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Century Gothic",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-ZA">Email:
</span><span lang="EN-ZA" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Century Gothic",sans-serif;color:#1F4E79"><a href="mailto:ina@assaf.org.za"><span style="color:#0563C1;mso-fareast-language:EN-ZA">ina@assaf.org.za</span></a></span><span lang="EN-ZA" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Century Gothic",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-ZA">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-ZA" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Century Gothic",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-ZA"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-ZA" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Century Gothic",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-ZA">1st Floor Block A, The Woods, 41 De Havilland Crescent, Persequor Park
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-ZA" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Century Gothic",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-ZA">Meiring Naudé Road, Lynnwood 0020, Pretoria, South Africa.
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-ZA" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Century Gothic",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-ZA"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-ZA" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Century Gothic",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-ZA">PO Box 72135, Lynnwood Ridge 0040, Pretoria, South Africa.
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-ZA" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Century Gothic",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-ZA"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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</span><span lang="EN-ZA" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Century Gothic",sans-serif;color:#1F4E79"><a href="http://www.assaf.org.za/"><span style="color:#0563C1;mso-fareast-language:EN-ZA">www.assaf.org.za</span></a></span><span style="color:#1F4E79"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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