Joy at school’s science lab
Patrick Woudt.
Woudt explained that the MeerLICHT telescope, which was created through a collaboration between the Netherlands, South Africa and the UK, was purpose-built to combine excellent resolution with a wide field of view.
Professor Paul Groot of Radboud University in the Netherlands said the science, which was starting with the telescope, would accelerate in the next few months and allow South Africa to share the data they gain with the world.
“The whole observatory is dedicated to transient follow up and will put South Africa in the lead in the future. No one has done this before; it’s the first time we’re doing simultaneous analysis. We’ll be staring at the same field, so if we see something interesting, we’ll be able to ask the other team if they saw something interesting a minute-and-a-half ago.
“It’s pretty exciting. Anything we’ll see we’ll share with the world. We’re training a lot of people to process the data and build up the skill set in students with projects like this.” PUPILS from Sutherland High School were ecstatic after a new state-of-theart science laboratory was launched at their school yesterday.
Sutherland is also where the Southern African Large Telescope is located. It has a 10m class optical telescope for spectroscopy. Today the MeerLICHT optical telescope there will be permanently linked to the MeerKAT radio telescope. It is South Africa’s precursor to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA).
The principal of Sutherland High School, Persephonie van der Ross, said they were very impressed with the new laboratory.
“Our science laboratory was outdated, and when minister Naledi Pandor visited the school two years ago, she promised us a new laboratory. And today we are launching it.
“With the SKA being in Sutherland the pupils are excited about science now. They are in awe of the new laboratory,” she said.
The school’s science teacher, Erika Burger, said: “This new science lab has made the science lessons much more interesting. The pupil are more enthusiastic because we are doing more science experiments,” she said.
One of the pupils at the school, Murial Jonkers, said: “I enjoy science. I am going to study medicine next year and I need science.”
Lucrecia Claasen, another pupil, said: “We are ecstatic about our new science lab. I have learnt a lot.”