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02 January 2018 Photo Destudio Architects and Urban planners
Innovative maths and science space on the horizon for Faculty of Education
Architectural illustration of the planned Science Park on the university’s Bloemfontein Campus.

Situated next to the Winkie Direko Building on the University of the Free State’s Bloemfontein Campus, an exciting development in the form of a Science Park is on the horizon for the Faculty of Education. 

This future development will comprise an outdoor Science Garden and an indoor Science Discovery Centre. It will be characterised by interactive educational displays and exhibitions and will feature an ICT Laboratory, amphitheatre, Family Math and Family Science training facilities, as well as a “planetarium dome simulator”.

The Science Park is in line with the university’s commitment to advance teaching and learning with regard to mathematics and science.

“Since the Science-for-the-Future (S4F) unit from the Faculty of Education focuses on the development of innovative teaching and learning programmes, the envisaged Science Park will support and complement current and future engaged learning initiatives. The Science Park will be a customised teaching and learning environment that embraces and promotes the most effective ways of teaching science, mathematics and technology, through hands-on, interactive, experiential and student-driven educational methods. This will provide opportunities for student teachers from the Faculty of Education, as well as teachers who receive in-service training at the UFS, to enhance the scope of their maths and science pedagogical content knowledge,” said Dr Cobus van Breda, Programme Director of the Science-for-the-Future (S4F) unit in the Faculty of Education.

The Science Park will also serve as a social space on campus where all students can interact within a fun and exciting popular science environment. “We see this as a creative approach to the use of spaces on campus to create an aesthetic and educational added value,” said Prof Loyiso Jita, Dean of the Faculty of Education.

In future, the Science Park, along with the existing synergy between the science and mathematics training programmes based at the Faculty of Education, the Naval Hill Planetarium and the Boyden Observatory, will provide a rich and unique opportunity to experience real-life science as well as content in context; all contributing factors to effective teaching and learning.

The Science Park project is estimated to be completed by the end 2019.


News Archive

UFS in forefront with ASGI-SA initiative
2006-05-10

At the conceptualisation colloquium and stakeholder dialogue were from the left Dr Aldo Stroebel (senior researcher at the UFS Research Development Directorate), Dr Edith Vries (acting Chief Executive Officer of the Independent Development Trust) and Prof Frans Swanepoel (Director: UFS Research Development Directorate).

UFS in forefront with ASGI-SA initiative

Two staff members of the University of the Free State (UFS) have been appointed as members of the advisory board of the national programme for the creation of small enterprises and jobs in the second economy.  This programme forms part of government’s Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa (ASGI-SA).

Prof Frans Swanepoel, Director of the UFS Research Development Directorate and Dr Aldo Stroebel, senior researcher at the UFS Research Development Directorate, are working with a team of experts from the UFS on a draft implementation strategy for the national programme.  Both Prof Swanepoel and Dr Stroebel are also associated to the UFS Centre for Sustainable Agriculture.
 
“The strategy is being developed in collaboration with institutions like the Independent Development Trust, the Department of Agriculture, the National Development Agency and the Department of Trade and Industry,” says Prof  Swanepoel.  

The other team members of the UFS are Prof Basie Wessels, Director of the  Mangaung-University Community Partnership Programme (MUCPP) and Mr  Benedict Mokoena, project manager at the MUCPP.

Dr Stroebel was also member of the organising committee of a conceptualisation colloquium and stakeholder dialogue that was recently presented in Johannesburg.  The conference was attended by more than 400 delegates from government departments, higher-education institutions and civil society, including Dr Kobus Laubscher, member of the UFS Council.

The conference was facilitated by Ms Vuyo Mahlati, previously from the WK Kellogg Foundation’s Africa programme and opened by Ms Thoko Didiza, Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs.   

“The colloquium formed the basis of an induction workshop during which a group of 150 individuals (50 teams of three) from all nine provinces, identified to initiate the implementation of the national programme, was trained and orientated towards an induction manual in collaboration with Hand-in-Hand, an Indian counterpart,” says Prof Swanepoel.

Dr Stroebel and Mr Benedict Mokoena formed part of the team to conceptualise and finalise this training manual.  The induction training includes a case study of a successful community self-help partnership model, namely the MUCPP at the UFS. Prof Wessels and Mr Mokoena are both playing a leading role in the further development of subsequent training initiatives throughout South Africa, in partnership with the relevant provincial departments.

“The involvement of the UFS in the programme is a compliment to us.  It reflects the value government sees in the use of academics and experts in the management of the ASGI-SA initiative.  It is also an indication of one of the aims of the UFS to play a role in South Africa and Africa and in the transformation and change that is taking place in our country,” says Prof Swanepoel.  

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel:   (051) 401-2584
Cell:  083 645 2454
E-mail:  loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za
10 May 2006

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