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Marvin and Milo go to Africa
“The school has seven hundred pupils and seven teachers. About one third of the children are orphans, a large percentage walk ten miles to and from school and most of them only eat one meal a day after school has finished and drink no water during the day, because the school has no pump. After making bottle rockets on Day 1, extracting DNA from bananas on Day 2, on Day 3 we made films using Marvin & Milo cartoons from the Institute of Physics.
Inseparable Books
Simple Siphon
We hadn’t appreciated that most of the pupils had never seen a video camera or a laptop, but we also didn’t realise how adaptable they were. All the pupils were able to explain scientific principles to a camera. Some pupils needed to be shown where the lens was. Pupils are taught about light travelling in straight lines in the Tanzanian curriculum but took some time to understand that if you stand in front of the experiment the camera won’t “see” the image.
Reversing Glass
The same evening I took the head of department, Mr Innocent Paul down to an internet café in Bukoba where I showed him YouTube.com and FilmsForLearning.org to show to show what other schools are doing with film and also where his films will be shown to the world. He knew the internet existed but was taken back by quite how much it has to offer African schools and education. It was our plan that any help or assistance we give the school is recorded on video so that any funding or charitable donation we receive and send to the Kabale school is recorded for all to see. We showed the head of science how to use a £30 video camera from Argos and windows movie maker, on an old donated laptop.
Balloon Rocket
On Days 4 & 5 we made more films of the pupils carrying out experiments of their choice. By Day 5 we had accomplished what we set out to do – establish what the Kabale school needs and train them up in techniques that will show potential donors and other schools what they are doing with the items that the wider community and The Thomas Hardye School donates to them.”
The full story of Dave & Christine’s visit to Kabale can be found here: http://www.thomas-hardye.dorset.sch.uk/pages/news/news_2009/11_09/tanzania.php and the videos made during the visit on the Films For Learning website.