May 19, 2010 - 8:59am
A lunch-hour performance has been added Thursday, May 20, for Vancouver Island
University’s second annual action-packed Extreme Science show.
Hosted by faculty from VIU’s Math and Science
departments, the show features a variety of exciting stunts, demonstrations and
science experiments.
“It’s going to be better than ever,” said VIU Physics
professor Ray Penner. “We’ve got new and amazing demonstrations up our sleeve,
including one trick where we’ll levitate VIU Math teacher Dave Bigelow above the stage.”
The Extreme Science show is Penner’s brainchild. It’s
a fundraiser for his charity, LED Africa. The nonprofit organization aims to
provide solar-powered lighting systems in secondary schools in rural Malawi,
Africa. Currently
students attend sporadic evening study sessions lit by kerosene lamps. Not only
does the smoke from kerosene cause health concerns, it’s often not available
and has to be imported.
Funds raised at last year’s show paid for
solar-powered lighting systems in three schools. Officials in Malawi report that pass rates amongst
students at these schools has increased on average by 37 to 61 per cent. The
lights allow students to attend regular study sessions in the evenings, an
option that wasn’t available to them before.
Penner developed a connection with Malawi when he
taught there 20 years ago. “I looked at a renewable energy project then that
provided lighting to a school. Although technically it worked, it was too
expensive to be implemented. A few years ago, I saw a show on TV dealing with
LED lights that could be viable, so I set up a little research project and
looked at designing an LED lighting system.”
Two years ago, Penner and his colleagues from the University of Malawi
set up a test system at a school using energy efficient LED lights powered by a solar panel on the roof. The total
power required for a 50 student classroom is about 40 watts, which keeps
expenses low.
“The key for me is that the system is built by
Malawians and maintained there,” said Penner. “The annual cost of running this
lighting is less than what the schools pay for kerosene and
therefore the schools can cover all the future maintenance costs. It’s a
long-term system.”
Last summer, he travelled to Malawi to install the
lighting system in six classrooms, working with technicians from the University
of Malawi to build the desk lamps.
Asked why he focuses his efforts on a charity in
Malawi, Penner said, “I have the technical experience in Africa. For me, this
is a way I can make a significant impact. So why not?”
In addition to funds raised by the Extreme Science show, funding for the
LED lighting is also being provided by local engineering firms who are each
sponsoring a classroom lighting system. These firms are Chatwin Engineering,
Herold Engineering, Levelton Consultants, Timberlake-Jones Engineering and
Anderson Civil Engineering.
Eventually Penner hopes to raise enough funds to install LED lights in
every rural secondary school in Malawi, which he figures would cost about
$200,000. “I’ve already been contacted by over 80 rural schools,” he said.
“They all want the system installed to help improve pass rates. My goal is to
install LED lights throughout the whole country.
“It sounds like a lot of money,” he said. “But I
recently saw on TV that Victoria spends $2 million a year on graffiti removal –
I could light all of the rural secondary schools in southern Africa with that.”
This
year’s Extreme Science show features instructors
from the physics, chemistry and math departments, as well as students.
The evening show open to the public Thursday, May 20, is from 7 pm to
8:30 pm in the
Malaspina Theatre at VIU’s Nanaimo campus. The lunch-hour show starts
at 12:30 pm. Tickets for the afternoon show are $10 and are available
at the door.
Tickets for the evening show are sold out. All funds raised will go directly to LED Africa. For more
information on the Malawi project check out www.LEDafrica.org.
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Tags: In the Community
