Dumso Times in Ghana

It’s currently 7:51 PM and Caleb and I have been sitting in complete darkness for about an hour [update, 10:20 PM and still no power]. We’ve finally experienced our first blackout. Everyone we’ve met so far has warned us that the president has been cutting power recently, but we keep telling them “nothing’s gone wrong so far!”. Our naive optimism didn’t last very long. Even with the blackout, however, the city isn’t quiet. In the background, there is the faint sound of drumming and laughter – Nsawam is awake. And if Nsawam’s awake, then so are we!

By the light of Star Wars and our little solar lantern, we are stapling together evaluation packets that will be used by the students in the coming weeks. With 150 booklets to staple, we’ve gone through two movies of the trilogies on this task alone. The mundanity of this task, however, was a welcome change of pace from the rest of the day. Printing the booklets earlier in the day proved to be harder than we expected.

Lights out means stapling, Star Wars, delicious mango, and a solar lantern to make it all possible (thanks for leaving this behind, Connie!).

We found a little copying center outside of one of the schools we visited today where a woman named Becky helped us on our printing mission. Unfortunately none of the three printers in her center printed front and back, so printing 150 copies of our 5 page booklet took quite a bit of maneuvering. But after three hours and two packages of cookies to tide us over, we were finally done and on our way home with 150 booklets and a new friend in Becky.

Our new friend Becky at the printing shop. Note the huge stack of SeedKit papers on the chair. We were probably her biggest printing order this week.

We began our day early (thanks to the wonders of instant coffee) in Pokuase at a Junior High School run by a man named Mr. Tanko. As the head teacher at Methodist A school, he told us about a lot of the problems his school has, including a well that has recently only provided salty, dirty water.

The well at Methodist A School. Students need this well because they only bring enough money for food, not for water as well. Right now, the well is only producing salty, dirty water.

According to Mr. Tanko, the only science resources the school was provided with from the government were roughly one beaker, one flask, one pipette, etc. that they kept in a plastic bag. Those items are long gone, having broken when an object fell on the plastic bag. Now, when his teachers want to do a science demonstration, they must pay for the materials out of their own pocket. These materials are not easy to find, either. Many times, teachers must visit other schools to borrow materials or go to the science center to try and find supplies.

Teachers shouldn’t have to worry about having their teaching supplies being destroyed. They shouldn’t have to pay for resources out of their own pocket, and they shouldn’t have to spend time searching for ways to expose their kids to science demonstrations. SeedKit will be able to address these exact problems in a big way, and we hope our talk with Mr. Tanko was just the beginning of a great partnership that will last for years to come.

Caleb and Vivian in front of the Methodist A School in Pokuase. We will  be returning next week to begin pre-examinations with the students.

You Are Welcome! (To Ghana)

Only four days ago we arrived in Ghana at the Accra airport. We were picked up by our new friend Mustapha who works with The Exploratory. After getting caught in a bit of traffic, we arrived at Connie’s residence in Nsawam. Do we like it here? We’ll let’s just let the view from our home speak for itself.

 

Everywhere you turn, there is another green lush mountain to gaze at. Both the landscape and our new friends seem to all speak the same phrase to us, “You are welcome.” It is true, since arriving here we have felt extraordinarily welcomed.

The past few days have already flown by. We had the pleasure of enjoying Labadi Beach with Mehak’s father, and began preparing for our school visits with Vivian, the interim director of the science clubs for The Exploratory. I must also note, that every single thing we eat is absolutely delicious. Mehak and I might have to learn to cook Ghanaian food before we leave…

Today was particularly momentous as it marked the beginning of our work here with SeedKit. Vivian met us this morning at the house and we took off down the road to catch the “trotro.” (The trotro is a small public bus that we have been using to go just about everywhere!) Our first stop was to meet Isaac at the Osaebo Junior High School (JHS). When we got off the trotro, we walked up a dirt road and ended up with yet another gorgeous view of the mountainous area. Once we got to the school Isaac spotted us and immediately waved us in to chat with him, the Head Mistress, and the other science teachers.

Following giving the explanation of our idea to visit one of their JHS science classrooms three times for a pre-assessment, lab practical experimentation, and post assessment, the teacher’s gladly agreed to help us with our project. Once we mentioned how happy we were to work with Isaac from the Osaebo School a little confusion followed. We quickly learned that while were were talking to an Isaac, we were talking to the wrong one! Isaac and the teachers are part of the Sakyi Agyawka JHS. We learned that within the school compound there are two separate JHSs! The Isaac we had contacted was still waiting for us across the courtyard at the other JHS school. Luckily, we all had a good laugh and eventually met the other Isaac. In the end, we ended up with another JHS that we could do SeedKit with and two Isaacs instead of one. We then visited the Tieku School also located in Nsawam and met with Mr. Gyampoh who was more than happy to allow us to bring SeedKit to his classroom in these upcoming weeks.

So, how is our trip so far? Well, I think Mehak’s expressionless  in the picture below says a lot about how we feel about Ghana.

If you couldn’t tell, I already love it here. What’s great is that the best is yet to come since the teaching hasn’t even begun! We’ll keep all of you updated.

Warm Greetings from Ghana,
Caleb

6 Days Until Departure!

Hello SeedKit followers! Caleb here writing your weekly update on how we are doing. It is exciting and tiny bit stressful that in only six days Mehak and I will be leaving Boston Logan Airport to fly to Accra, Ghana. While at first it seemed like there were more than a million things to do, more and more everything is falling into place nicely through our hard work and dedication to this project.

Caleb & Mehak. Tired but happy!

In the past week, we designed pre and post assessment questionnaires for the students and teachers we will be working with through AWAP. Wendy Robeson, our adviser from Wellesley Centers for Women, is overseeing this process. Wendy specializes in education outcomes and runs many studies throughout the Boston metropolitan area. From our assessments we are hoping to learn more about school demographics, the ways teachers utilize hands on resources in their classrooms, teaching methods, learning methods, and SeedKit’s overall impact on student’s learning and interest in science. We will hear back about our IRB approval soon and we eagerly await to get started. Additionally, we will take a feminist approach to interpreting our data. Our “feminist approach” includes special attention to gendered differences in the classroom that will provide critical insight on how to best design SeedKit to address inequities in classrooms.

Yesterday, Isabella, Mehak, and myself spent almost the entire day in the machine shop. (A big thank you to machinist Larry Knowles for helping us!) There we cut pencils to be used as electrodes, shaved copper coated zinc pennies to be used as battery parts, and sawed ice trays in half as to be used as test tubes. We still have about 500 pennies, 144 pencils, and 30 ice cub trays to go to finish our Seed Kits before we leave. Check out these videos and pictures of us getting to know the machines!

Having fun in the machine shop

Isabella learning to use the bandsaw

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mehak operating the automated drill press

The Power of Data

Today we begin research regarding data collection tactics. At SeedKit, we would be remiss to evaluate the effectiveness of our kits in isolation through simple pre and post testing on curriculum topics. While we are interested in knowing the impact that SeedKit has in the short-term, the ultimate goal is to track students’ progress over a longer period of time; we strive to understand how access to resources improves the way that students think, ask questions, and learn.

As interns in Ghana, we report to Connie Chow, the founder of African Women Advocacy Project and the The Exploratory . After meeting with her yesterday (with the help of Skype as she is currently in Ghana), we decided one of our goals as her interns (other than not getting malaria) would be to measure the effectiveness of the current planning and attendance documents to improve monitoring of students. This task will help us explore the importance of school systems rather than initiatives considered in isolation. Hopefully, after working with Connie’s organizations, we will be equipped with the skills necessary to improve our learning outcome examinations so that we can always be thinking of ways to improve the SeedKit.

T-16 days to Ghana.