P1.23 Meteorology at the National Festival of Science, Engineering and Technology in South Africa

Tuesday, 4 July 2006
Millennium Room (Millennium Hotel)
Charlotte May McBride, South African Weather Service, Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa

Introduction

This festival celebrated its 10th birthday this year. On the programme were a variety of events from the international lecture series, talkshops, workshops, film festival and a large number of exhibitors. The focus is to make Science, Engineering and Technology fun, interactive and accessible to all.

The South African Weather Service has been involved with the festival for a number of years and has helped to bring meteorology into the spotlight amongst festival goers. In a country where weather is often regarded as background music to the everyday events it is important that meteorology take its rightful place among the sciences. Weather workshops, talkshops together with lectures are a way to make festival goers more aware of the weather around them and the importance of technological improvements that meteorologist are continuing to make in order to better understand and predict weather.

The challenge

To make people aware of the festival so that they too can make an important contribution in helping to grow meteorology as a science related topic in South Africa

Web link

http://www.scifest.org.za/

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