Cape Town - Aiming for every African child to harness their potential, Dr Tshiamiso Makwela, who recently graduated with a doctorate in astronomy at the UCT is assisting students from all walks of life to aim high.
From being fascinated by the moon, Makwela’s passion for inclusion, diversity and access to education has led her to assist students from all walks of life reach for the sky through her thesis titled, Probing students’ understanding of celestial bodies of sizes and distances.
Born and raised in Diepkloof, Soweto, Makwela said while she enjoyed looking at the night sky with her family accompanying her, she felt many people still think of astronomy as a hobby and not necessarily a career, and she wanted to change that.
“Understanding, reasoning, meaning-making and even sense-making are challenging concepts in astronomy education research and physics education research, as they deal with student thinking. Furthermore, there are certain concepts that are important in astronomy, which are like foothold ideas that need to be understood well enough if one is to continue pursuing astronomy. An example is the issue of distances, magnitudes, gravity, etc.
“Through my research, I hope to find ways we can probe student thinking through questionnaires and diagnostics tests and draw on the knowledge of students to build and create resources that will help students better understand these astronomical concepts.
“I have had the opportunity to interact with students and their parents on open days at UCT and they always ask, ‘so where are you going to work after this?’ I think astronomy has the potential to transform lives, as I always thought that it is the mother of all sciences and communities around it lack information and thus discourage children from even looking beyond the sky,” said Makwela.
Makwela’s thesis is being supervised by physics and academic development Professor Saalih Allie, who said Makwela’s work showed a productive approach to dealing with the broad issue of conceptual difficulties associated with learning science in general.
“Astronomy is one of the country’s flagship sciences, with the optical South African Large Telescope and the radio Square Kilometre Array being two examples of facilities that are renowned internationally in this regard. However, while instruments and facilities are vital for pursuing world-class research, we will not ‘own’ the science without participation from as broad a spectrum of our population as possible.
“The detailed study shows that the stumbling block lies at a deeper cognitive level (and cannot simply be blamed on poor teaching and poor students). This deeper perspective allows for designing suitable activities that will help students engage with this important ‘doorway’ concept. More broadly, the work shows a productive approach to dealing with the broad issue of conceptual difficulties associated with learning science in general,” said Allie.