Hands-On Research School in Africa

A UNESCO/ICTP-sponsored ``Hands-On Research in Complex Systems'' school was held 1-12 August 2010 in Cameroon for young science faculty in Africa (see handsonresearch.org). Fifty participants from 17 African countries were selected from a pool of more than three hundred applicants. The goal of the school was for the participants to learn to use modern inexpensive instrumentation (such as webcams) and computational techniques to study diverse phenomena in physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering. The hands-on laboratory sessions were led by 12 senior faculty (most from the US); each faculty member brought a graduate student to assist with the teaching. In addition to the laboratory and computational activities, the participants also learned peer instruction teaching methods, developed oral communication skills in interactive sessions, and learned how to do simple inexpensive classroom demonstrations. This talk will show pictures from the Cameroon Hands-On School and will present plans for similar schools in developing countries in Asia, Latin America, and the Mideast.