By Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D.
Emeritus Professor of Sociology
Introduction
Mr. Mwanza was a short brown man. He was my Grade 6 Science Nature Study class teacher. He had brought in a paraffin cooker and a ten-gallon empty Olivine cooking oil aluminum container for that class period science demonstration. He unscrewed the lid of the container and turned it upside down. Nothing dropped out. He tapped the large tin container with a ruler and the loud sound the container made confirmed that it was empty. His actions were just like a magician would except this was science.
Mr. Mwanza placed the lid of the container on the table. He poured 16 oz or 454gms of water into the container. He lit the paraffin cooker which soon was producing roaring blue flames. He placed the container on the cooker. After a few minutes, the water was boiling as steam was rising out of the opening of the container. After a few minutes, Mr. Mwanza took the hot container off the cooker and placed it on the floor. He turned off the roaring paraffin cooker. He quickly took the lid from the table and screwed it tightly on the container, The class waited.
After one or two minutes, loud popping sounds came from the aluminum container as it twisted, crushed, and collapsed as an invisible powerful force was attacking and destroying the container.
Tamanda Mission Boarding School
I was 11 years old in Grade 6 at Tamanda Dutch Mission Boys Boarding Upper School 58 years ago in 1965. Mr. Mwanza was demonstrating to the class the impact of the very heavy atmospheric air pressure. The measurement of atmospheric air pressure is done with a barometer. Mr. Mwanza said the crushing happened because a vacuum had been created when the top of the container tightly closed the steam from the condensing steam from the boiling water created a vacuum. I later qualified to attend the prestigious Chizongwe Secondary School where our teachers Mr. Varugheese from India and Mr. Wallin from Norway conducted Physics and Chemistry experiments in our school laboratory in Form VI and V up to 1971. Science classes and experiments created my life long deep interest in both natural and social sciences.
Chizongwe Secondary School
After I graduated from Chizongwe Secondary School in 1971 and 47 years later in 2018, I was lucky enough to buy 50 Hectares or 123 Acres of natural wilderness land in rural Chongwe outside Lusaka. I created the Mwizenge Sustainable Model Village. Among the numerous objectives of the model village is to create an environment for social and natural science scientific studies and observations. There are so many exciting things happening on the model village premises. One of the recent highlights is the arrival of a cutting-edge microscope for observation of nature.
We were able to use the microscope because electricity is available through solar power. The village has adult men and women, several young boys, and girls who are in Grade 6, 7, and 8. Once we had unpacked the microscope and hooked it up to the solar power, the moment of excitement had come for me and the gathered curious residents. I had never used a microscope before. What were we going to observe first?
I told them; “We can’t put an elephant under the microscope”, I joked. I sent Joseph, 17yrs, Grade 6 to get the tiniest ant. He searched carefully on the ground until he found the ant. Once he brought it, we placed it under the microscope. I peered through the microscope first. What I saw surprised me. Then everyone was excited and wanted to take turns peering through the microscope. There were excited reactions of surprise of: “Oh-h-h-h! Ah-h-h-h-h!!!” What we saw was the tinny leg of the ant magnified more than ten times had all these numerous hairs sticking out.
Going Forward
The challenge moving forward is that I will need formal practice on the basics of microscope use. How can the samples be preserved? What will be done initially will be just observation of various objects, organisms, creatures, critters, trees, plants, insects and numerous other samples of items found directly in nature as the village is located right in the middle of nature. This may eliminate the need to collect a sample, have it preserved in a jar and transported hundreds of kms to a lab in Lusaka. At least the initial activities will be observations that will be conducted on the premises and recorded. The microscope may initiate some interest in science in both the young and older village residents. We may have to build a model Village Nature Science Laboratory.
Why can’t we have science practices among residents of villages all over rural Zambia?