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| March 2006 |
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Chemistry triggers a positive reactionChristina Scott
Heidi Assumption, a South African scientist, knows what makes us tick - quite literally. Assumption, who works in the research and development division of the South African petrochemical firm Sasol, is an expert in polymers - tiny molecules strung in long repeating chains, like a pearl necklace. Big deal, you might say. Polymers have nothing to do with my life. And you'd be dead wrong. You're a polymer. So are all your family, friends and pets. Your hair, your skin, your nose and your toes are all following the blueprint encoded in microscopic twisted strands of all-powerful DNA, the genetic instructions that define people and other living things. And DNA is a polymer. "If you ask me, I will say that I am a polymer," says Heidi cheerfully. So are lots of other things: the proteins and starches in the foods we eat, the wheels on skateboards and in-line skates, the tires on our bikes and cars. In fact, we're surrounded by polymers every day, everywhere we go. "Understanding their chemistry can help us use polymers wisely," she says. "Once we're familiar with how man-made polymers such as plastic actually work, we can recycle many of them. That's good for the environment. We have to take responsibility for the things we create." The 31-year-old from the Eastern Cape province became fascinated by science relatively late in life, well after she graduated from Chapman High in Gelvandale, Port Elizabeth. She received a Sasol bursary to study chemistry at the then University of Port Elizabeth, now the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. She then did a Masters degree overseas in the USA. "Heidi is enthusiasm personified," says Dr Neville Emslie, who now heads up Sasol's research lab in Scotland. "She has a goal in life to help with science education in South Africa and she comes up with some really good ideas.. When I first got her involved in SciFest (the country's leading science outreach programme) she took the bull by the horns and came up with really good ideas. And to add to this, she is a people's person, which has made it so easy for her to interact with the kids at SciFest." My point of view is that it's important to create an awareness of science in everyday life," Heidi advocates. "Chemistry is all around us: you can't buy something from the Pick 'n Pay or the hardware store without being affected by chemistry. Also, it's fun." Soon she will be encouraging others to follow her career path. Heidi will be leaving her office and laboratory in Sasolburg, south of Johannesburg, and returning to her roots in the Eastern Cape. She is one of the star attractions at the tenth annual Sasol SciFest in Grahamstown, which will be running this year from March 22 to 28.
With help from her colleague Dr Ingrid Sabbagh and a team of enthusiastic varsity science student volunteers known as SciFriends, they unpack an entire truckload of equipment in order to run Sasol's popular "serendipity in science" interactive workshops. Think of the workshops as performance art for high school science students. Or as science improvisation. "I absolutely love everything about SciFest, including the talks by high-flying scientists," confesses Albert van Wyk, a Rhodes University chemistry Phd student who's been attending the festival for years. "But the workshops are one of the most important things on offer because they are the only place where people can relate on a one-to-one basis with real scientists. A lot of people are too shy to ask questions at lectures in a big venue but in a workshop environment, people have to interact. I love the way it gets kids excited." Heidi and Ingrid's "serendipity in science" shows form part of literally hundreds of workshops on the jam-packed SciFest week calendar. What makes their workshops stand out? A sense of the theatrical, it seems. "They have a very professional set which looks like a real lab and they get the kids to wear lab coats and safety glasses," says van Wyk, who will be running logistics at the festival this year. "The idea is to make chemistry more alive, more exciting but also more real," explains Ingrid, who compares her field - organic chemistry - to playing with a children's toy like Lego blocks. Only this time, she's playing at a molecular level. "The whole idea of taking science out of the classroom and making it more accessible, there wasn't a lot of that when we were at school!" Teachers don't mind taking the science out of the classroom, either. "They participate fully in the workshops and take all the material back with them and they're generally very keen to implement some of the experiments in their classrooms," says Ingrid. The team also provide an experiment book - like a cookbook for aspirant scientists - so that learners, teachers and parents can safely conduct science "recipes" at home. Ingrid helps run the workshops with Rhodes University students such as Tania Millward and Prudence Tau. Depending on the age group, learners may do Heidi's popular nappy experiment, in which they re-enact the television comparison ads and realize that not all polymers - yes, they're in nappies as well - are equally effective at absorbing liquid. "We refrain from using brand names," she jokes. In another workshop, learners make a working lava lamp. In the process, they discover how the peculiar lamp's hypnotic sink and float rhythm has everything to do with gravity and the differing density of the contents - precisely the same principles used to separate and recycle plastics. Another one of her workshops will demonstrate the power of distilliation, the same technique made world-famous by Sasol when it developed the uniquely South African ability to turn coal into oil. Although distillation is used to make brandy and whisky, Heidi and Ingrid will be using the process on a non-alcoholic liquid: tea. But they're going to work in reverse, using an ordinary teapot and removing the water from the tea! But the SciFest week must also be something of a marathon: three workshops a day, each about 45 minutes long, with as many as 25 unruly teenagers at each event, for a week. Plus a team who can't bear to turn away any interested youngster handicapped only by a lack of finances, not to mention the chance to mingle with the brightest minds of our generation at the evening lecture series, when they could be catching up on sleep or resting their aching feet. It could be a nightmare. But Heidi's approach to chemistry is relaxed: "if some of the experiments don't work, that's ok," she shrugs. "That's part of life as well. My aim is not to put a mask or too much makeup on chemistry and say everything works all the time." With up to 35,000 people surging around Grahamstown during the Sasol SciFest week, many of them walking hormone factories in school blazers and dresses, the workshop participants can form a volatile chemical cocktail all on their own. But is SciFest too intense to make a longterm dent in South Africa's science backlog? "SciFest is absolutely worthwhile," Heidi says firmly. "What is really fascinating is that I saw some of the learners choosing to come to the workshop two or three times, sometimes with their parents over weekends and with school groups as well. We might spark a passion within them for science that they may have overlooked or have thought it was beyond them. We've seen a lot of 'a-ha!' expressions and that is very rewarding to me." More information:
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The tenth annual Sasol SciFest
is currently on the go and there are still
spaces at some of the 350-odd workshops being held from March 22 to 28 this
year, including some of the Sasol workshops held by Heidi Assumption and Ingrid
Sabbagh. For more information on Africa's largest science festival, phone 046
046 6031106, email