DESCRIPTION AND INTERPRETATION PART I: THE CASE REPORTS
4.4 CASE 3: FARM SCHOOLS IN THE GRAHAMSTOWN DISTRICT
4.4.4 A stimulus for question-posing
After the field work session at Farmerfield school, I asked groups of pupils to raise any questions that might have emerged from their experience at the river. The questions were very interesting and penetrating, revealing a real desire to understand and not simply to accept what was told them. Questions included, for example:
"What does the method of breathing [of water organisms] tell us about the quality of the water?", "What kills animals in the water?", "Why.do bacteria live in dirty water?", "How can some animals live in water that is harmful to us?", "Why did we find mayfly nymphs even though the water was dirty?" and "Why does the mayfly adult live only a day while its nymph lives for a whole year?" (pupil questions).
The pupils also commented on some of the things they had found interesting about the project. For instance, they were interested to have learned that finding many different animals living in fresh water indicated that it was clean, having thought that the presence of animals in the water would make it dirty. In a letter written to me at the end of the project, pupils from Brighton school stated that it was important to
61
them to have learned that boiling dirty water could make it safe to drink. A Farmerfield pupil stated that he was more interested in studying water since having seen the different animals that live in it.
At the farm schools, I often observed classes answering teachers' questions in unison and interpreted this to mean that pupils were taught in a rote fashion which did not encourage questioning. This interpretation was challenged in discussion with a colleague who suggested that answering questions in unison was a way of maintaining the cohesiveness of the group. It certainly appeared from the sorts of questions the pupils asked about stream life that their sense of enquiry was by no means impaired.
A strong sense of group cohesiveness was noticed in the manner in which pupils were consulted by their teachers when decisions had to be made, the way in which teachers constantly asked whether the group was together in understanding what was happening (Siyavana? = Are we together?) and the way in which pupil worked naturally and productively in groups.
4.4.5 Use of the Water Cycle poster:
During introductory sessions with the farm school pupils, I felt it was important to make sure that they understood the concept of the river as a whole system, from its source to its mouth. Being the children of farm labourers, it was unlikely that the pupils would have travelled widely and therefore it was possible that they might never have been to the sea or seen the ways in which rivers were used and polluted in urban areas. I therefore made use of a poster produced by the Urban Foundation and Cape Nature Conservation which illustrated the water cycle, including the various stages of a river and some of the sources of pollution which contaminate it (Chapter Two).
When the teacher asked the pupils to name things which polluted water, they mentioned things they were familiar with, such as litter, soap and livestock.
Chemicals, oil and even sewage were not immediately identified. Nutrient runoff from agricultural lands, although something that happened in their own areas, was not
62
mentioned because it was not visible. The poster helped to illustrate that people living upstream of the pupils could pollute the water they used. The way in which they used the stream could, in turn, affect people living downstream. It also helped to illustrate water supply and sanitation in towns, and industrial uses and pollution of water, issues most of the children were unaware of.
4.4.6 Action resulting from field work:
Brighton and Farmerfield pupils investigated streams on or near the farms where their schools were situated. Begelly, however, chose to have an excursion to a mountain stream because the river on their farm was stagnant and very muddy. We therefore visited the Berg River, a mountain stream supplying Settler's Dam which provides Grahamstown with water (Figure 3).
The pupils found numerous organisms and, using the water quality slide (Appendix 3b), concluded that the water was clean and suitable for drinking. However, they also noticed that people who had been picnicking at the stream had left a lot of litter.
When asked about the possible effects of this visible form of pollution, the pupils were concerned that it might make the water dirty and kill some of the animals. I asked whether we could do anything about this problem and they suggested tidying up the litter and putting it in the bin provided. The pupils enthusiastically cleaned up the stream area (Figures 17 & 18) and, without being asked, one group started picking up litter along the road verge. Within a very short space of time, they had filled all the containers we could find.
Having taken photographs of the outing, I discussed with the teachers and pupils the possibility of publicising what they had done in the local newspaper. On returning to school, one group of pupils planned an article for the local newspaper (Appendix 14) and another group wrote a letter to the municipality, asking that the litter they had collected be removed. In order to enable the pupils to plan their writing without being inhibited by language, I suggested that they write in Xhosa and that their
63
FIGURE 16: BegeHy Farm School pupils working together to translate information about water organisms into Xhosa
FIGURE 17: BegeHy Farm School pupils collecting litter from the Berg Stream
63a
teachers help them to translate their letter and article into English. In this way, action to address a problem in the environment developed out of a school field trip and pupils practised skills of writing articles and official letters in the context of an actual experience.
4.4.7 The coliform test:
I was concerned that pupils who had never seen a microscope might not understand the idea of microscopic organisms such as bacteria. I therefore tried to think of simple ways of explaining the presence of coliform bacteria in sewage-contaminated water and the way in which the coliform test worked. The coliform test was usually done after the pupils had searched for water organisms in the stream. I compared catching bacteria by filtering water through a micropore filter to catching water organisms with a sieve, as they had done. I described the concept of bacterial reproduction by binary fission in simple terms in order to show how incubating the filter on a growth medium produced visible colonies which one could count (Appendix 15).
Pupils used the coliform test to test water quality in water tanks, rivers and dams near the schools. Water in many of the rivers and dams was obviously too dirty to drink.
The drought had dried up many of the streams, leaving only muddy, stagnant pools which, like the dams, were visited by livestock.
In order to see whether various types of water treatment could kill bacteria and make water suitable for drinking or washing purposes, a series of coliform tests was done.
The pupils tested river or dam water before and after various treatment methods (sand filtration, boiling, treatment with Dettol and Milton) (Figure 19). Boiling and treatment with antiseptics killed all the bacteria, resulting in no colonies growing on the filters. Untreated and filtered water, however, was found to contain numerous bacteria. Pupil interest in this aspect of the project was reflected in their enthusiasm to participate in and see the outcome of the tests. The group at Brighton school
64
FIGURE 18: Teachers and pupils from Begelly Farm School and a nature conservation officer with the litter collected from the Berg Stream
FIGURE 19: Teacher and pupil from Begelly Farm School testing water from the stream on the farm for coliform bacteria
64a
admitted that they were trying to implement in their homes what they had learned from these experiments. With regard to the issue of purifying their drinking water, the pupils wrote: " We are trying to remember ... although sometimes we forget because we are not used to boiling water" (from pupil letter).
4.4.8 Possible future developments:
Despite emphasising that approaches such as the coliform test and field work with the water booklets are methods that the schools could use in future, I do not know whether these approaches will continue once I have left. In order to provide teachers with the opportunity to continue with the project if they wish, I introduced them to the teacher who will be coordinating Project WATER in future. Mr Nonqane of the Albany Museum would also be in a position to support further developments, having been involved in the project from the beginning in Grahamstown. Throughout the project, teachers and pupils were directly involved in doing the field work and experiments themselves. They therefore have had the opportunity to develop skills which they can use later if they wish.
4.4.9 General comments:
I recognised two factors which contributed to the positive response to Project WATER which I experienced in the farm schools. These were firstly its relevance to community health and secondly its potential to enrich the educational situation.
Unlike in urban areas where people have access to treated, piped water, the health of rural people is directly affected by the quality of water in their tanks, rivers and dams. This problem is exacerbated during periods of drought when diminishing water sources are in greater demand and pollution becomes more concentrated.
Teachers saw the relevance of this project to their daily lives and were keen for their pupils to become involved.
65
Mr Nonqane introduced me to schools which he knew were responsive to project work. I found the teachers very willing to make time for projects that would provide enriching educational experiences for their pupils. Their flexibility provided opportunities for project lessons and field trips to become truly interdisciplinary in nature, an important aspect of environmental education (Connect, 1978). Lessons regularly combined language, science, biology and geography. Pupils were occasionally required to do simple mathematics, such as when diluting antiseptics and when calculating bacterial concentrations in water. The teachers did not appear to be concerned with where the project fitted into the syllabus. The exercises were accepted because of their immediate relevance. The project also lent itself to many different educational approaches, such as observation, experimentation, group work and reporting. Pupils stated that the topic interested them because it was relevant to their everyday lives and most of the work was done in their immediate environment.
The flexibility of teachers in the farm schools was not encountered in town schools I visited. It may be unfair to compare these situations as another significant difference between the schools was that the farm schools were on the whole primary schools and the town schools were all high schools. The teachers in the town schools were more constrained by time, the syllabus and subject divisions. This sense of knowledge compartmentalisation is a tendency which environmental education seeks to overcome (Connect, 1978). In my experience with the farm schools, Project WATER provided a focus which helped to make education more interdisciplinary, responsive and relevant.