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Student Geography conference inspires next generation of geographers

06 November 2023 | Story MBALI MABOEA | Photo SUPPLIED

The Department of Geography on the UFS Qwaqwa Campus recently played host to the Society of South African Geographers Conference (SSAG 2023), which gathered more than 100 students over three days.

Fostering academic growth, collaboration, and inspiration among students and researchers in the field of geography, the Department of Geography on the UFS Qwaqwa Campus recently played host to the Society of South African Geographers Conference (SSAG 2023), which gathered more than 100 students over three days.

Following a five-year hiatus, the three-day conference comprised student proposal presentations in different fields: human geography, environment geography, geoinformatics, and physical geography, divided into breakaway sessions over two days. Furthermore, day three of the annual conference included an excursion to the Basotho Cultural Village and Clarens.

The three-day annual student conference focused on different themes presented by two main speakers. The topic of the first keynote speaker, Dr Mahlomola Daemane, General Manager of the SANParks Arid Research Unit, focused on the contemporary conservation, transition, and relevance of science in policy and decision making.

The second keynote speaker was Dr Felicia Akinyemi, a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research Fellow affiliated with the Institute of Geography at the University of Bern in Switzerland. Her work focuses on the intersection of geoinformatics, global change, and sustainability. Dr Akinyemi focused her talk on the integrative geospatial methods and metrics for sustainable land use. She introduced different techniques and metrics and gave students insight in early-career African research.

Speaking about the success of the conference, Nthebohiseng Sekhele, Geography Lecturer on the Qwaqwa Campus and chair of the organising committee, said, “The local organising committee was also very impressed with the quality of presentations from our postgraduate students in Geography, as well as the robust discussions that happened during the parallel sessions in the two days of the conference. We had a positive response of physical and online participation from many universities across South Africa. We are pleased that we have achieved our goal with this conference, which is to inspire the next generation of geographers.”

News Archive

Curtains fall on Darwin lecture series

2010-02-03

The University of the Free State (UFS), in collaboration with the Central University of Technology and the National Museum in Bloemfontein, will host the final lecture of the Charles Darwin lecture series entitled "The story of life and survival" as part of the 200-years celebration of Charles Darwin’s birthday on Thursday, 11 February 2010.

The lecture titled Trends in evolution and their bearing on the future of humankind will be presented by Prof. Bruce Rubidge and Prof. Terence McCarthy from the University of the Witwatersrand and co-authors of the book The Story of Earth and Life.

Last year, when the year-long lecture series started, several lectures were presented by academics from various departments at the UFS.
Prof. Marian Tredoux and Mr Johan Loock from the Department of Geology presented lectures on The origin of our solar system and The geological evolution of our planet: the first billion years, respectively.

"Transitions and extinctions" was the topic of another lecture presented by Dr Jennifer Botha-Brink, a paleontologist at the National Museum and affiliated to the Department of Zoology and Entomology at the UFS. She discussed the causes of mass extinctions and their effects on the world's organisms.

The Department of Genetics also made their contribution to this lecture series in the form of two lectures on the genetic foundation of evolution presented by the Head of the Department, Prof. Johan Spies and Prof. Paul Grobler, an Associate Professor in the Department.

Next followed lectures on the evolution of the information and communication technology that were presented by the Departments of Communication Science, Chemistry, Physics, and Computer Science and Informatics, which focused on communication in a manufacturing environment, the knowledge explosion and the broadband universe.

This final lecture of the series will be presented in the CR Swart Auditorium on the UFS Main Campus at 18:00. Limited seats are available and bookings can be made by contacting Ms Isabel Human at humanci@ufs.ac.za or 051 401 2427 before or on Monday, 8 February 2010.

Media Release:
Mangaliso Radebe
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2828
Cell: 078 460 3320
E-mail: radebemt@ufs.ac.za
2 February 2010

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