By taking overall ownership of science advancement initiatives within the NRF and on a countrywide scale, SAASTA is responding to an organisational as well as national imperative.

SAASTA’s Business Units

Science Education

The aim of SAASTA’s Education Unit is to build the supply of tomorrow’s scientists and innovators. South Africa is rapidly reaching the forefront of science and technology advancement in Africa and internationally, and has the potential to become a rich source of up-coming scientists, engineers and innovators.

Considering that South Africa was ranked very low in the 1993 and 1998/9 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, the work done by SAASTA’s Education Unit will be pivotal in preparing today’s youth to become tomorrow’s scientists and engineers. This work can be divided into the following three broad areas:

School science support, which includes educator and learner programmes; science enrichment projects; and competitions.
SET careers, which exposes learners to career opportunities in science, engineering and technology.
Science resources, which includes resources to support the school science curriculum; enrichment materials; web-based materials; and online learning.

Science Communication

The essence of good science communication lies in providing credible and accurate information that is accessible to to all South African communities.

To achieve this, SAASTA’s communication unit utilises three critical processes:

• The Scientific Editorial Process (which ensures that information is responsible, reliable and credible); and
• Scientific editing (which considers ethnicity and ethnology of target audiences, ensuring that messages are clearly communicated and understood).
• Audience analysis, with the intention to better understand South Africa’s diverse audience categories by measuring information needs and information seeking behaviour.

The unit has the following focus areas:

• Science and the media: This includes media-scientist networking, events and the facilitation of workshops to assist media practitioners and scientists to popularise science.
• Science promotion: This includes various communication tools and resources that are used to promote science to the general public, one of the best-known being SA Science Lens – South Africa’s only scientific photographic competition.
• Science communication and capacity building: This includes developing the media and communication skills of researchers, enabling them to more effectively share their achievements in priority research areas.

Three DST-funded programmes are managed by this unit:

• The Public Understanding of Biotechnology programme (PUB)
• The Public Engagement with Nanotechnology programme (PEN)
• Hydrogen South Africa Public Awareness

Science Communication strategically develops and implements new science communication initiatives in response to national challenges and needs and in line with international trends in the field of science communication. This Unit sustains and renews a portfolio of existing science communication initiatives.

Science Awareness Platform

Science is often thought of as something that is abstract and generally out of reach for the average South African. The main aim of SAASTA’s Science Awareness Platform is to literally put the world of science in society’s hands through exhibitions and through hands-on experience of science. It provides science that the public can see, touch, feel and experience. In this way, science is demystified, is less foreign, becomes tangible and practical and, most of all, becomes fun.

The Science Awareness Platform achieves this through the following focus areas:

• Festivals and events such as INSITE, Science Unlimited, SciFest Africa, Sasol Techno-X and National Science Week.
• Science and Technology Centre Networks, i.e. human capacity development at science centres and other special programmes.
• Programmes such as in-reach, outreach and mobile programmes.
• Exhibitory, of which it does the design, fabrication, maintenance and outsourcing.

SAASTA occupies two sites, namely the Didacta Building in Pretoria that serves as its headquarters and the Observatory in Johannesburg. The Johannesburg Observatory can host exhibitions on engineering, optics, astronomy, astrophysics and space science. Learning facilities include the infinity room, telescopes and the TRAC laboratory. The Johannesburg Observatory also has the following resources available or learners, educators and the public: forensic science laboratories; a computer laboratory; a library; several telescopes; 19 exhibits in the form of interactive hands-on models; and travelling exhibits such as SciQuest and StarLab.