Science has an impact on every single aspect of our lives. It is therefore important to close the existing gap between society and science.  

Climate change and its impacts do not respect borders. While discussions surrounding global climate change are held across many tables in South Africa, catered access for all members of society is ensuring that the benefits of scientific advancements are shared by all.

This was highlighted in this year’s National Science Week celebrations, which were centred around the theme Science, technology and innovation are for everyone.

The NRF-SAEON Ndlovu Node and EFTEON Lowveld Landscapes are located in northeast South Africa, a landscape characterised by far-flung rural villages and scattered towns across the provinces of Limpopo and Mpumalanga. Connecting these villages are often long and sometimes unpaved roads, surrounded by communal grazing lands and subsistence plots, highlighting the dominant drivers of these economies – small-scale and commercial agriculture and mining alongside significant wildlife tourism and game farming.

The impacts of a changing climate pose a serious threat to the sustainability of these economies. Rainfall variability, heat stress as well as pest and disease shifts would have crippling effects on agriculture. Drought, fire risk and storm damage significantly increase the vulnerability of the forestry industry, which makes up a considerable land use in this area. These effects would also not spare the wildlife and tourism industries, where biodiversity threats such as shifts in vegetation and water availability may degrade ecosystems, resulting in a decline in tourism appeal.  

Practical demonstrations – climate and biodiversity 

As part of National Science Week outreach, EFTEON Lowveld and the Ndlovu Node led demonstrations to grade 9 and 10 classes at Mahlale High School in Welverdiend Village, as well as at Shobiyana High School in Acornhoek.

Outreach activities included a demonstration of climate variation, during which weather data from the EFTEON Wits Rural weather station and the SAEON Jonkershoek weather station were compared for the period January 2025. This activity, led by Dr Amukelani Maluleke (EFTEON instrument technician – Lowveld Landscape), showcased the important climate variables that SAEON measures, and indicated the varying climatic conditions in the country due to numerous factors such as the ocean and elevation. This ensured that the learners gained practical experience in learning about the instrumentation set-up of a weather station and could begin to analyse weather data by using basic statistics and storytelling for comparing air temperature, rainfall, humidity, as well as pressure between these two sites across a period of 31 days.

Building on this climate focus, the biodiversity activity expanded on how climate variability affects biodiversity, with a primary focus on the interactions between plants and animals, and what interventions could aid in mitigating the effects of a changing climate and curbing biodiversity loss. This demonstration, led by Tsumbedzo Ramalevha (EFTEON biodiversity technician – Lowveld Landscape), brought into discussion the different biomes in the country and highlighted how a changing climate affecting biodiversity would interrupt food web dynamics and, subsequently, human livelihoods.

Feedback from the learners  

Visiting these two schools located in a rural peri-urban setting brought to attention the need to increase the frequency of school visits, indicating a continued demand for the work done through Joe Sibiya and the rest of the SAEON Science Engagement team. The learners and educators were not only very welcoming but also expressed a keen interest in visiting some of our field sites to expose the learners to careers in environmental and other sciences in the near future.

“There is a lot that we learned today, and going forward, we will change how we interact with the environment.” ~ Gift Khumalo, grade 10 learner, Mahlale High School

While these and surrounding schools may suffer from a lack of adequate resources, leading to reduced teacher and learner morale, there were significant signs of interest in the tasks we had prepared, with learners asking questions and showing genuine interest, especially during the engagement with the weather instruments. This reflects the resilience embedded in rural communities that calls for continued support, ensuring that science and technology are not foreign subjects but form part and parcel of the way they navigate life.

Ours then is a duty to extend resources to facilitate co-learning experiences and provide access to cutting-edge science, which would otherwise have been out of reach.