Description of project:

As a follow up to the teacher resource packs that were handed out to teachers as part of the Hip2bē road show in September / October 2002, six workshops were organised, facilitated by the Mathematics Centre for Professional Teachers, in seven provinces with the theme ‘Maths and Science in Space’. The workshops will be aimed at grades 7 to 9 teachers and will include two teachers from each of the 250 selected schools.

The Shuttleworth Foundation's involvement:

The Shuttleworth Foundation and ABSA are jointly funding the workshops for the 250 schools that attended the Hip2bē road show. The resource packs handed out during the road show will be used in conjunction with training manuals designed for the workshops and contain practical maths and science teaching activities.

Aims and objectives:

The project aims to maintain the momentum and excitement that was brought about by Mark Shuttleworth?s Hip2bē road show. It aims to train the teachers to use fun activities in bringing maths and science education, in particular around space, to the classroom.

Status (December 2003):

The workshops have been concluded which brings this project to a close. A variety of responses from the service provider were fed to the Foundation. Most of them were positive although we were alerted to particular problems around educator attendance at the workshops in the Western Cape, which affected the overall impact of the project in the province. Supported by evidence of poor feedback, frequent absenteeism and documented resistances have led the Foundation to probe these problems a little more with a follow up evaluation. More information on this will be available next year. The project is presently being evaluated.