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Be a hero and donate blood

12 October 2021 | Story André Damons | Photo Unsplash

blood donation — Bring your blood and get a free doughnut. The Faculty of Health Sciences is conducting a blood drive this week and encourages everyone to roll up their sleeves and donate blood.

The Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Free State (UFS) is conducting another blood drive at their office in the Francois Retief Building this week (12 – 14 October 2021), and will be rewarding each donation with a free doughnut.

The faculty is challenging every doctor, nurse, and pharmacist, every paramedic, radiographer, and technician to roll up their sleeves and lend an arm to donate a pint of blood. If every health-care worker joins the donation and donates blood four times a year, there would never be a blood crisis.

The Faculty of Health Sciences invited the South African National Blood Services (SANBS) to the UFS this week to provide all students and staff the opportunity to donate blood at their place of work and study.

The Mental Health Awareness Campaign of the UFS Faculty of Health Sciences has included a community service component in our efforts to raise awareness of mental health issues since 2020. This is in light of increasing evidence that altruism and volunteering provide significant benefits to mental health and feelings of well-being. As all our staff and students know the vital importance of blood, we decided to focus on the SANBS as our partner to provide a quick, convenient opportunity to feel like a real hero by donating blood every three months, while enjoying a free snack.

October is Mental Health Awareness Month – we would like to invite all staff and students on campus to participate in this life-giving event.

Details for blood donation are as follows:

When: 12, 13 and 14 October

Time: 07:00-15:00

Where: Francois Retief Foyer, UFS

News Archive

Project aims to boost science pass rate

2009-01-19

Attending the launch of the HP grant of about R1 million to the UFS are, from the left: Mr Leon Erasmus, Country Manager for HP Technology Services in South Africa, Prof. Teuns Verschoor, Acting Rector of the UFS, and Mr Cobus van Breda, researcher at the UFS's Centre for Education Development and manager of the project.
Photo: Lacea Loader

The University of the Free State (UFS), in partnership with computer giant Hewlett Packard (HP), wants to boost the pass rate of its science students by using mobile technology.

The UFS is one of only 15 universities across Europe, the Middle East and Africa and the only university in South Africa to receive a grant from HP to promote mobile technology for teaching in higher education valued at USD$ 100,000 (or about R1 million). Altogether 80 universities from 28 countries applied for the grant.

“Last year HP invited a number of selected universities to submit proposals in which they had to explain how they are going to utilise mobile technologies in the redesign of a course that is presented at the university. The proposal of the Centre for Education Development (CED) at the UFS entitled “Understanding Physics through data logging” was accepted,” says Mr Cobus van Breda, researcher at CED and manager of the project.

According to Mr van Breda, students who do not meet the entrance requirements for the three-year B.Sc. programme have to enroll for the four-year curriculum with the first year actually preparing them for the three-year curriculum.

In order to increase the success rate of these students, the project envisages to enhance their understanding of science principles by utilising the advantages of personal computer (PC) tablet technology and other information and communication technologies (ICT) to support effective teaching and learning methodology.

“By using PC tablet technology in collaboration with data-logging software, a personal response system, the internet and other interactive ICT applications, an environment different from a traditional teaching milieu is created. This will consequently result in a different approach to addressing students’ learning issues,” says Mr van Breda.

The pilot project was launched during the fourth term of 2008 when 130 first-year B.Sc. students (of the four-year curriculum) did the practical component of the physics section of the Concepts in General Science (CGS) module by conducting experiments in a computerised laboratory, using data-logging software amongst other technology applications. “The pilot project delivered good results and students found the interactive application very helpful,” says Mr van Breda.

”The unique feature of the latter is the fact that real-life data can be collected with electronic sensors and instantly presented as computer graphs. It can then be analysed and interpreted immediately, thus more time can be devoted to actual Science principles and phenomena and less time on time-consuming data processing,” says Mr van Breda.

The CGS module can be seen as a prerequisite for further studies in physics at university level and in this regard it is of essence to keep looking for new models of learning and teaching which can result in student success. This year the theoretical and practical component of the physics section of the CGS programme will be done in an integrated manner.

Media Release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl.stg@ufs.ac.za
16 January 2009

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