Tiisetso Lephoto came second at the Falling Walls Conference in Berlin as the best researcher in South Africa/Africa. Photo: Bongiwe Tutu
While most people know her as the “gym girl”, Wits PhD student Tiisetso Lephoto (25) is also a One Young World ambassador and a Wits Golden Key member. Recognised as one of the new young and upcoming researchers in science by the Gauteng department of agriculture and rural development in 2013, she secured second place at the Falling Walls Conference in Berlin for the best researcher in South Africa/Africa. Lephoto is a Wits aerobics fitness and training instructor and founder of TiiMoves.
What research are you working on for your PhD?
My project is based on trying to come up with ways to reduce the use of chemical pesticides. Since 2011, when I started with masters, I’ve been trying to discover nematodes; microscopic worms which can kill insects. So, instead of spraying harsh chemicals which can make us sick because our food has been highly contaminated, my project wants to come up with ways of reducing or eliminating the use of these harmful chemicals, and find biological control agents. That’s the healthier way of killing insects without harming people or animals in any way.
What influenced the role you play in aerobics today?
I joined an aerobics community programme. They taught us almost everything, and it became fun, like a dancing routine, so I incorporate everything into my aerobics routines. And it’s more like a God-given talent, that’s how it feels, I just think of steps in my head and I execute it.
What is the most fulfilling part about being an aerobics fitness and training instructor?
I started an NGO called YesWeAreMoving in 2011. My aim was to spread the culture of healthy living, so I started to organise aerobics marathons alongside academic tutoring under a programme called Katleho Pele Education. We help grade eight to 12 learners in Soweto maintain their studies and health. We have a marathon this Saturday at the Squash Complex on West Campus from 9-11am. I organise the marathons to donate and fundraise for orphanages. This year is aimed at collecting food, toiletries, and clothes. And with my own personal training company, TiiMoves, I encourage others, and help people to put nutrition together with exercise, and feel good in their own skin.
What is most central to your life’s philosophy?
I give back to the community, this is my philosophy; I believe the higher you go, you have to find a way to lift other people with you. I like seeing someone happy, it’s very fulfilling to share knowledge, to help someone, and then see them succeed. I always think, with so many things that I do, ‘God where will you place me?’ I’m passionate about science and I’d like to be one of the leading young researchers and discover something to save the future of agriculture. So, the future holds me continuing to research, help other young people, encourage them to pursue what they love, and maybe to do science. Everything needs to just be well. Wellness is everything.
National Science Week presents cutting edge science and technology at Wits University. Prof Adam Habib, Wits Vice-chancellor, opened the event by welcoming students, staff and visitors to the exhibition of innovation by Witsies in the Senate House concourse.
This week’s episode looks at whether the youth is prepared to study science at university level, and investigates a model of maths and science education from a high school in Limpopo that shows South African children can success with the right approach, no matter what the circumstances.
There have been mixed reactions to a report released this week which suggests that the quality of South Africa’s maths and science education is extremely poor by global standards.
Academics and students at Wits University are split between those that believe there are firm reasons for the poor quality of education and others who reject the report itself, known as the “Global Information Technology Report 2014.”
Released by the World Economic Forum (WEF), the report ranked South Africa’s quality of maths and science education last out of 148 countries including Kenya, Chad, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Lesotho.
Reacting to the report Professor Eunice Mphako-Banda, a mathematics lecturer at Wits, believes that a key problem is the introduction of calculators in maths education. “The biggest problem I see is this introduction of calculators in primary school,” says Mphako-Banda. “You don’t learn anything by using calculators.”
Students must “think and use [their] brain,” said Mphako-Banda.
Professor Gillian Drennan, assistant dean of undergraduate affairs in the faculty of sciences at Wits, agrees that students battle to apply what they have learnt, saying that pupils in high school have been taught “how not to think”.
“We [South Africa] need students who know how to think.”
Lagging behind
Dr Gideon Fareo, a computational and applied mathematics (CAM) lecturer, questions the validity and authenticity of the report, claiming that the report is “not a scientific comment … based on scientific deductions.”
Fareo does, however, believe that the results of these findings should not be de-bunked.
“In light of the facilities available in [South Africa], we shouldn’t be having this problem,” stated Fareo. “Why are [countries like] Nigeria and Haiti ahead [of us]?”
Both Mphako-Banda and Fareo believe that the problem lies in the lack of attention paid to primary schools.
“[Government] spends so much money on tertiary education but what about the foundations?” asked Fareo. “[Without basic education], how are [students] supposed to cope in high school and university?”
Mphako-Banda, who hails from Malawi, says she doesn’t “trust this system [of South African education]”, and believes that the “political will,” to improve South Africa’s education is non-existent.
“We are not looking at the standard [of education], [just at] how do we make people pass.”
“This whole system makes me angry,” she says.
Fareo, however, believes that the government “has a good ambition”, but just does not apply its policies well enough.
“I believe we can do better than we are now.”
Inadequately prepared for university
An honours student in CAM, who has asked not to be named, is currently doing her research on matric pass rates for mathematics, dealing with Model C public schools in particular.
Her preliminary results show that pass rates are “quite bad” and believes this is due to “bad teaching facilities and bad teachers”. She also said that she felt under-prepared for her tertiary education.
A PhD student in CAM, who spoke to Wits Vuvuzela on condition of anonymity, believes that maths in high school “has been made a joke”, and students are “inadequately prepared for university”.
He also said that “language is [one of the] main issues” he has to deal with when teaching CAM students, stating that they understand the maths but reading textbooks and notes in English presents a challenge.
Solutions at Wits
Mphako-Banda also believes that students are “very, very unprepared” for tertiary-level education, but adds that Wits has had to offer a two-week pre-university course to registered engineering students, because lecturers “know [the students] are not prepared” to cope with the level of maths and science at the university.
According to Brennan, Wits has received a government grant and specialists will be employed in the faculty of sciences to help students who are struggling with the curriculum.
Brennan believes that the decline in educational standards is “not just a South African problem.”
“The decline in education is a global phenomenon … and at a global level, [we need to] tackle head-on these challenges.”
Around 2000 rhinos have been poached in South Africa since 2012.
Regardless of the efforts made to stop this, the numbers increase year after year. Will we be able to stop rhino poaching? By starting with the atrocious story of a mutilated rhino being found by Belgian tourists in The Kruger National Park , The Science Inside explores the science and technology of rhino poaching.
The following clip here looks at the organized crime networks behind rhino poaching and how the networks keep ahead of the technology.
Johannesburg’s mild earth tremors and women who eat toxic clay to lighten their skin tone are two of the stories in this week’s The Science Inside. The weekly science show on campus radio station VoWFM also looks at a community learning about the scientific impact of their lives on the their surroundings.
Listen to the podcast of the show presented and produced by Paul McNally and former #teamvuvu journalist Anina Mumm, here:
The Science Inside brings chemistry of another kind to campus via VoW FM airwaves. Photo: Wits Vuvuzela
By Pheladi Sethusa and Paul McNally
Wits campus radio station, VoW FM (90.5), debuted a pioneering science show called “The Science Inside” last night.
The show aims to teach listeners about science in new and interesting ways. The show produced by The Wits Radio Academy with funding from The Department of Science & Technology, takes major news events and goes into the science behind them.
According to presenter Paul McNally, the show is committed to science education in a climate where South Africans consider knowledge of political parties superior to chemistry (and by extension corruption-uncovering journalists are deemed more worthy than science journalists). This is a perception the show hopes to chip away at, as our science and maths education was ranked second last in the world last year, just ahead of Yemen, according to a World Economic Forum Report.
In the pilot episode Deejay Manaleng explained how a pepper spray was dropped in a girls’ bathroom. The gas escaped across the toilet and up to the ceiling. She giggled at the memory of her running out of the toilet cubicle of a packed club spluttering and coughing. She starts to cackle when she explains how each girl – for the rest of the night – squeezed into the cubicle, pulled down her pants and burnt her ass. “They were screaming,” she laughed into the microphone.
The episode with Deejay then focused on chemical weapons in Syria – a macabre and bloody topic – but the pepper spray story helped ease the tension before investigating the technology behind complicated killing machines. One of the experts on the show cited pepper spray as the world’s simplest chemical weapon.
Next Monday the show will look at the science inside South Africa’s ARV shortage. Tune in live every Monday at 6pm or stream/download the Science Inside podcasts on soundcloud.
This week is National Science Week in South Africa. Wits Senate House Concourse is playing host to a number of stalls during the week, to showcase some great innovations by young scientists at Wits.
A team of Witsies is one of only three African teams shortlisted for a global aviation competition with a R330 000 prize.
The team, who call themselves Stormhawks, hope their idea ‘to improve the eco-efficiency and sustainability of the aviation industry’ will be the best, and win them a cool €30,000 (R330 000). The prize money will be awarded by Airbus in its biennial Fly Your Ideascompetition.
The team members are Pitso Mangoro, Azhar Cassim (both 4th year Aeronautical Engineering), Tshireletso Mango (4th year Electrical Engineering), Sambharthan Cooppan (Masters in gas dynamics) and Muhammed Dangor (Masters in control).
They are proposing a hybrid visible light communication system for aircraft control, which involves transmitting data in planes in the form of light instead of the current system that is through electrical wires.
The Stormhawks expect that this will reduce the weight of aircrafts and lower fuel consumption, to reduce carbon emissions. It could also make aircraft assembly quicker and maintenance easier.
Mangoro, who is the team leader, and his four colleagues were the only ones willing to participate in the competition. They chose each other for their individual strengths and fields of expertise, and said Wits has encouraged teamwork throughout their degrees.
Mangoro came up with this idea and said there was nothing stopping bigger firms from ‘stealing’ it.
“We have not yet considered such a possibility and would rely on such a firm’s integrity and morals in not committing such an action.”
Clear to land: The Stormhawks from Wits have been assigned an Airbus expert to support them as they race to finalise their idea before the April 12 deadline. Photo: Provided
The Wits team are among 100 teams from around the world put through to the next round of the competition. The other two African teams hail from Nigeria and Kenya.
The competition is backed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and European aviation giant Airbus.
The 100 teams still face another elimination round before the final five present their idea to a panel of Airbus and industry experts in Hamburg, Germany on June 12. The awards ceremony will take place the following day at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris.
Mangoro said they would share the prize money equally if they win, and use some of it to tour Europe before returning to South Africa.
Published in Wits Vuvuzela 2nd edition, 15th February 2013.
Juliet McClymont is an Evolutionary Biomechanist who studies endurance running in fossil and modern humans. She is one of the “naked scientists” portrayed in Brett Eloff’s Resuscitare, on exhibition at the Resolution gallery until the 5th of September in Johannesburg. Photo: Brett Eloff
A religious group’s poster was found covering a nude photograph of a scientist in the Wits Geology building last week.On Thursday August 16, a poster advertising the services of the Christian Action Fellowship (CAF) was pasted over photographer Brett Eloff’s image of Tamaryn Hodgskiss, a PhD student.Eloff and Hodgskiss had agreed that acting head of Geosciences, Prof Lewis Ashwal, could display the picture in the foyer of the building to promote the photo project, which is on exhibition at the Resolution gallery in Johannesburg.
Ashwal said he did not think displaying the poster would be a problem. “I thought it would be fun to publicly illustrate, in an unusual way, the ‘passion’ our post-graduate students have for their research.”
CAF chairperson Ndivhuwo Nethononda was not aware of the incident and said the group always told its members to put posters “on an empty spot”.
French PhD student and brainchild of the project, Aurore Val, said the photos were originally intended to become a calendar, but some senior academics and members of a funding body had discouraged the project. She said they had associated the idea of a nude calendar with pornography, and felt it would tarnish the reputation of the women in the photos as well as the field of palaeontology.
Hodgskiss said: “I suppose people thought they’d be tacky, crude images that might do damage to the department’s image, as well as do damage to the reputation of the person in the photo.”
But Hodgskiss and Val said most people who had seen the finished project loved it. Resolution gallery owner Ricardo Fornoni confirmed that a member of one of the funding bodies visited the exhibition and enjoyed the pictures. Fornoni also said there was nothing sexual about the photos.
Eloff raised concerns that scientists who were against the exhibition might be elitist if they did not want the public to be drawn into their work through unique projects like this.
The twelve images on display show various scientists posing with the subjects of their research, including skulls, bone tools and rock art.
The captions to the pictures describe the scientists’ research in their own words. Val said many of the visitors at the show’s opening read the captions and wanted to know more about the science.
Val also said she hoped the pictures would change people’s perceptions of scientists. “They are just young, normal people.”
A diverse audience gathered at the Wits Theatre on Thursday August 23 for the first TedxWitsUniversity event. TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design, started as a four-day conference in California 26 years ago, and has grown to become a global non-profit organisation.
Since her announcement as the Democratic Alliance’s mayoral candidate for Johannesburg, Helen Zille has dominated national headlines. In this bonus episode of We Should Be Writing podcast, hosts Lulah Mapiye and Bonolo Mokonoto dissect a media meet-and-greet with the mayoral hopeful. From her extensive political résumé to her controversial public utterance, we examine why the Democratic Alliance has chosen Hellen Zille as their candidate for the 2027 local mayoral elections. Additionally, […]
