Mobile Science Lab to Impact students in Zimbabwe

July 1 2017 marked the official launch of the 7 - week Mobile Science Laboratory Pilot  Project. The Pilot programme was a composite of Biology practicals that were done over a period of 8 weeks. 6 schools were represented from the high density areas and students from the Home School community added diversity to the group. This was the 1st time for many students to be in a laboratory, so it came with a lot of excitement. We are so grateful to our alumni and current students for volunteering throughout the sessions. Many thanks Tongai our Science Teacher and Stuart his Assistant for all the preparation work and delivery of the lessons.  Our deepest gratitude goes to all our sponsors who made the running of the mobile laboratory possible. It has been a learning curve for Makomborero. Here is what Tongai had to say about the pilot project.

 Lesson delivery

With the laboratory being fully equipped the students were able to carry out the practical experiments to full detail without any improvisions. The laboratory has a capacity of 15 students and this is the number that was consistent during the sessions. The practicals were held on Saturdays starting at 9am finishing at 11am. This involved a 30 minutes lesson to introduce a bit of  background for the day's practical experiment. After the introduction, pupils would carry out a practical that was split into two halves each being 40 minutes with a 5 minutes snack break. The last section was a clean up that would take up to 5 minutes and helped the pupils understand the importance of safe disposal of the reagents. Reflective sessions were also held after each pratical on the industrial application of the knowledge gained.Every week, pupils would switch partner so as to learn different things from each other

Performance during the practicals

During the first two weeks the practicals seemed very difficult for most of the students because they were not familiar with the instrumentation and how best to utilize them so as to obtain the most significant results. Most pupils lacked confidence in carrying out the practicals but became better as time went on.

After the third week most of the students were very comfortable and this was definitely due to the fact that the confidence and zeal of other students had rubbed onto the rest of the class. As the students became more confident even their execution of practicals became finer. Generally all the students managed to obtain expected results and from the worksheets, it was clear that the objective of the practicals was well understood.

CHALLENGES IDENTIFIED

There is need for more  learning aids so as to help understand better during the introductory 1st 30 minutes lesson . Whenever a practical is conducted it may be necessary to use aids that are complimentary to that practical . It was also very difficult to carry out the pre - runs prior to the Saturday session because of the limited resources and time. It was a challenge sourcing other chemicals  due to availability in the country. Alternatives had to be used.However, all the practicals went out the way that they were expected although it is general lab routine to carry out pre-runs. The mid year examinations meant some of the pupils missed out on sessions. 

CONCLUSION

The pilot project of the science mobile laboratory was very successful in that it created a more detailed Zimbabwean scientist. Tongai, being a teacher from one of the schools represented , also noted the difference in the interest and perfomance of students who were participated in the pilot project as compared to those who did not take part in the sessions. It is our hope that with more funding we would be able to give more students access to science pratical experiments.

• Summary of the Project Expenses (PDF)
  

Well launch date has been set for Saturday 1st July at 9am!  Much excitement as we work towards this date and put all the final preparations in place for our pilot run of a 6 week Biology course with 15 'Guinea pig' students!  To say we are excited is an understatement.  This has been a dream we have longed to see come true and the day is nearly here.

So what will we be focusing on over the next month?

• Final revision of our lessons plans and notes - making sure they are fantastic - this has taken much more work that we originally thought!
• Final labeling of the Laboratory, hanging of hooks, pictures and equipment.  
• Final checks on health and safety.
• Recruiting our first group of students.
• Trial running a few lessons.
• Printing all our resources.
• Buying a few essential chemcials and supplies for the lab that we don't have.

We have attached a summary of the expected costs over the next few months.

We look forward to writing our next report and telling you how the students are enjoying this incredible learning opportunity.  An opportunity that for all of them will have only been a vague dream - to put their theoretical knowledge into practice!

Thank you to all our incredible volunteers (past Makomborero students) who have come in one day a week to write the curriculum with the help of teachers advising them, label and inventoring all the equipment. It has been humbling to see their dedication.  To be honest this project would not have been ready to launch without their hard work!  We value you guys!  

• Mobile_Science_Laboratory_Revised_budget_june_2017.pdf (PDF)