First Week in Ikumbo

I'm back in Nairobi for a day to pick up our newest team member, Amrita. Here are some relays from events in Ikumbo over the last week:

Billy

The Form Four students at Ikumbo Secondary School were excited for their laboratory exercise. The idea of actually doing chemistry once a week was invigorating; it was a hands-on way to learn the concepts their teacher has lectured on that week in the classroom. But there were only two burettes, and ten students huddled around each metal holding stand. The chemicals were measured by guesswork, because there were no balances available.

On March 7, 2009, only three months ago, the Ikumbo Secondary School opened the doors to its newly built science laboratory. Prior to this opening, the students of Ikumbo had to travel eight kilometers down the road to use a neighboring school’s laboratory when classes were not in session. The proximity of lessons to exercises was obviously lost.

The new lab

While the new laboratory provides a space for students to practice their science, the building itself is not sufficient. The laboratory severely lacks equipment and chemicals, and many of the required exercises in the curriculum cannot be completed. There is still no running water, power, and the gas lines are not functional. But this exercise could be completed, so this years graduating class was going to make the most out of it.

Chemicals for the lab

With ten students titrating a single beaker of sodium hydroxide with hydrochloric acid, the experiment was carried out meticulously, and quite successfully. Each student took part in the exercise, some measuring, some mixing, some writing and some calculating. Their results were perfect, and with some help, their explanations began to take form. They will need to take their experience and explanations with them in order to perform similar experiments by themselves on the national examination in just a few months.