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SAASTEC Conference delegates visit HartRAO 2000/11/17

The Third Annual Conference of the Southern African Association of Science and Technology Centres (SAASTEC) was held at the University of Pretoria from 16 - 18 November 2000.

At the conference itself, Mike Gaylard presented a talk entitled Reaching for the stars: visitor response to the HartRAO experience. Jill Cairns gave two talks, Touching the multitudes: science festivals and focus weeks and Reaching teachers: workshops on astronomy in OBE. Mkhululi Kobo described his experiences in organising a science festival at the University of Fort Hare in the Eastern Cape Province, in a talk entitled Taking science outside the cities.

On the evening of 17 November some 75 delegates to the conference spent the evening at HartRAO. The visitors toured the observatory, seeing the radio telescope and satellite laser ranger in action, and enjoyed dinner in the HartRAO Visitors Centre. Gaps in the summer clouds allowed the visitors to see Venus, Jupiter and Saturn with 20cm and 35cm optical telescopes used by the Observatory's Science Awareness Programme.

dinner in VC
Dinner in the HartRAO Visitors Centre

The visit was hosted by Dr. Mike Gaylard, leader of the Science Awareness Programme. Tours and viewing were run by the Director, Dr. George Nicolson, Jill Cairns and Mkhululi Kobo of the Science Awareness Programme, Astronomy PhD student Sharmila Goedhart and Senior SLR operator Louis Barendse. Joki Motsweri and Rebecca Motsweri provided general support.

At the conference itself, Mike Gaylard presented a talk entitled Reaching for the stars: visitor response to the HartRAO experience. Jill Cairns gave two talks, Touching the multitudes: science festivals and focus weeks and Reaching teachers: workshops on astronomy in OBE. Mkhululi Kobo described his experiences in organising a science festival at the University of Fort Hare in the Eastern Cape Province, in a talk entitled Taking science outside the cities.