In the lead-up to starting the LADUMA survey, our team has focused on public outreach involving school visits in the greater Cape Town area, and online media including producing a series of short YouTube videos talking about LADUMA, and MeerKAT.
Our two school visit campaigns were attached to our 1st and 4th LADUMA team meetings which took place in Cape Town in 2012 and 2016. With these visits it has been our aim to publicise astronomy and in particular, radio astronomy and the MeerKAT project.
Online media
Our main online media project has been to produce, in collaboration with Paul Yule at the University of Cape Town, a set of five short videos to present MeerKAT and LADUMA science to the general public (aimed at South Africa, but accessible to anyone). With our survey name, LADUMA, being the same as the isiZulu word typically used when a goal is scored in soccer, we chose a soccer-based theme to help describe the astronomical concepts in our short videos. These can be viewed here and are also linked to from the SKA SA website.
Please also take a look at our Facebook page which we keep regularly updated.
School visits
So far, LADUMA team members have presented 27 outreach talks to Grades 10-12 learners at 25 schools (including some repeat visits) in the greater Cape Town area.
2016 Visits
- Aloe High
- Cedar House
- Elkanah House
- Ocean View Secondary
- Simons Town School
- Springfield Convent
- Steenberg High
- Oude Molen Academy of Science and Technology
- Pinelands High School
2012 Visits
- Abotts College
- Aloe High
- Bellville THS
- Bishops
- Camps Bay High School
- Cape Academy for Mathematics, Science and Technology
- COSAT
- El Shaddai Christian School
- Good Hope High School
- Herschel Girls' High
- Mondale High
- Ocean View Secondary School
- Oval North High School
- Paul Roos Gimnasium
- Phakama High School
- Phillipi High School
- Plumstead High School
- Settlers High School
- St Cyprian's Girls' School
- St George's Grammar School
