CELEBRATING WOMEN'S DAY 2007

SA Museum, Iziko Museums of Cape Town, 25 Victoria Street, Cape Town.

8 August 2007

Raising awareness about Careers in Science [08h45 - 13:00]

A morning event will be directed at promising Science and Mathematics female learners from

grades 9 -12 from around the Western Cape.

We will have interactive displays that will engage the girls in various aspects of Science and ensure that Science career information is provided. To facilitate the girls? experiences with the displays, we intend employing about 25 women postgraduates from the various tertiary institutions in the Western Cape to each take groups of about 20 girls around the displays as chaperones/guides.

We believe that it is important for the learners to see that Science is a growing body of knowledge, that new research contributes to it, and that they too can contribute someday. Interspersed with the displays we will have posters made by women postgraduates about their cutting edge research.. The postgraduates will be at their posters through the morning so that they can chat to the girls casually about Science, research and ?why it is they do what they do?.

During the morning we will have a series of structured talks by selected ?role models?, such as women postgraduates and active women scientists in research, industry and business.

A set of outstanding postgraduate research posters will be selected for our SAWISE website and for a calendar or poster series to be distributed to participating schools for 2008. We believe that the women postgraduates will also benefit by networking with their peers from other tertiary institutions and research specialisations.