An account of Laura, Lieven and Adam’s visit to Teshie Hendom RC School, which can be found to the east of Accra – as reported by Adam:

“Several hundred Ghanaian students warmly welcomed us during their assembly in the school playground. This was the first assembly that I had been to which concluded with military-precision marching and a drumming accompaniment.

Afterwards we were introduced to Miss Jenifer Amah, the school’s science teacher. We briefed her on our programme and were shown our first class, JHS1. It was decided that we would run our vision lesson. As I work in optics, it was my turn to step up, backed up by our glorious leader, Laura, and marathon man, Lieven.

JHS1 responded really well considering there were 70 (!) students in the class. They were very switched on; either they had had a super-charged breakfast that morning or the earlier marching worked a treat. The class ended with an interesting discussion with questions like “Why do you see spots after staring at a bright light?” Excellent.

They were thinking independently. Gold star JHS1!

Our second class was bridge with JHS3 – Teshie’s final year students. Laura led this class and we asked the students to build a load-bearing bridge using materials that included wooden kebab sticks and sturdy wire from coat hangers. We ran the class as a game where the winners were the ones who used the least resources. This class had a really good time. It was amazing how competitive and bursting with vigour the students were. It was simply an unforgettable experience working with such talented students.

Next on the day’s schedule, we met the Chairman of the Parents & Teachers Association who showed us around the school…

They have made some great progress in rebuilding and refurbishing parts of the school. However, the only working computer at the school had recently broken down and therefore they were keen to build links with schools in the UK, especially if schools are updating their computers and would be willing to donate their old ones to Teshie School. So if anyone has any serviceable computers looking for a new home please do get in contact.

The day ended with a class on water filtration with JHS2. Led by Lieven, the session saw the kids building their own practicals to clean swamp water. It was a great class, covering environmental ideas in chemistry, biology and physics. 90% of the materials came from the student’s playground; materials do not get more local than that. We also discussed solar disinfection (SODIS), a system that kills the bacteria present in water using the simplistic of materials – a plastic bottle and sunlight.

A big thank you to Father Clement for organising our visit to Teshie School.

Thank you also to Annabel for being such an excellent host and one final thank you to Miss Jenifer and everyone at Teshie School for taking such good care of us and for teaching us some marvellous Azonto dancing.”

We were the A-Team. Three volunteers: Laura – our glorious fufu^*-loving leader; Lieven – a super-fit neuroscientist marathon man; and, myself – a quantum physicist who likes to do a bit of science outreach in his spare time.

(^*fufu = a Ghanaian delicacy)

It keeps on top of the latest teaching techniques and disseminates what it learns to other schools – a perfect partner for Lightyear. However it is also a school situated in a deprived area to the East of Accra, which brings its own set of challenges.

Adam re-counts his team’s visit:

The very charismatic head teacher, Mr Kofi, runs the school. Partway through introducing us to the students and teachers during assembly, he switched to speaking the local language…

How strange we thought. Was this for our benefit? … Why would he keep secret what was being said? Unfortunately for Mr Kofi the language of a teacher telling students that they had better behave was universal. (I have been on the receiving end many times during my own time at school.)

You could also tell from the students’ reaction that they held him in very high regard. They giggled at his exaggerated posturing but obviously took his message on board. Assembly finished and we headed to our first class followed by marching students and a wonderful drumming band.

We were to spend two days at Immaculate Heart, which gave us time to show our full repertoire of activities to the Junior High school students (aged 11-14 years old).

As part of the school’s ethos of sharing expertise with other schools, Mr Kofi had invited a selection of specialist science teachers and local officials to observe our classes – no pressure!

It was a great opportunity to affect a wider impact with our work and the feedback we received from our invited guests was very positive. There was a sense of excitement during the classes and you could tell from the discussions afterwards that they were very engaged in the concept. The amount of cameras that came out during our bridge building class was mind-blowing.

At the end of day one we met with Immaculate Heart’s primary school teachers to discuss what issues they were having and if we could be of help. They set us the task of finding demonstrations to help teach the topic of measurement – a part of the syllabus they found particularly difficult to teach.

Always up for a challenge, we set about scouring a recently acquired copy of the Ghanaian syllabus to see how we could provide support…

The topic of measurement covered density, which meant we could improvise using a demonstration called the Cartesian Diver. This is where you float an object – your diver – in a sealed plastic bottle. If the “diver” contains some trapped air, and is of the correct weight, then the diver will sink when you squeeze the bottle and float again when you relax the bottle. It is tricky to get the ratios just right but it is a fun demo to do and has loads of interesting science behind it.

The next morning we went on a trip around the local area to see what materials we could find for our “diver” demonstration. The school was seen as a crucial element to improving the local area and the esteem with which the residents held it was made immediately clear to us. The residents were welcoming in typical Ghanaian fashion but as soon as they heard we were involved with the school, they were overjoyed.

“If you have any problems around here, you tell them you’re with Patricia and they’ll have me to deal with!” exclaimed one elder lady.”

Our shopping trip even turned into a science busking outing once we explained to a few people what we were doing and showed them our newly formed physics trick.

We eventually found some sweets with the right weight-to-trapped-air ratio to work as our “diver” and we returned to the school to show the teachers. The primary teachers were happy with our invention, but the real test will be whether they use it in future lessons (visit our Facebook page for teachers posting photos of their school science demonstrations).

It is often said that humans aren’t great at dealing with change, but that is certainly not true of the Ghanaian teachers we met. They loved the local materials approach and we look forward to working with more of them in the future.

Immaculate Heart was a delightful school to work with: the students were engaging; the staff were excellent; it sits at the centre of a network of schools which maximises our impact; and, it has passionate leadership in the form of Mr Kofi and Mr Kena. Big thanks also to Emilia for hosting us!”

This school was visited by the intrepid A-Team: Laura, the leader of the gang; Lieven, a neuroscientist marathon machine; and, Adam, a quantum physicist and ever so proud geek.