Solar Schoolhouse Teacher in Malawi [Africa]

Kristina Derhammer is teaching science at a girl's school in Malawi, Africa. Rahus/Solar Schoolhouse, together with Lodi Electric Utility, provided training and a diverse solar toolkit prior to her departure in Fall 2002. The following are notes from Kristina describing her experience in Malawi, where solar energy can really make a difference.

Science Education in Malawi

Girls are hard-pressed to receive an education in Malawi, and science is among the most challenging of subjects to them. Girls in the village may be pressured to marry at an early age, some as young as my 13-14 year old freshmen students. When they do find the support to attend school, it is difficult to afford school fees. Class sizes range to 100 students in an almost- barren cement room, such as the case with my Integrated Science course. There are only 3 textbooks for all of these students. Currently, Mvera Girls’ Private Secondary School is in the midst of constructing a new science laboratory for the girls’ education. Several educational tools were donated by Lodi Electric Utility and the Rahus Institute including a solar panel, fan, water pump, electrical wires, and a reflective solar cooker [Solar Cookit from Solar Cookers International]. Though construction is still in progress, the solar electricity tools will be among the first educational resources at the lab‘s completion. In the meantime, the tools have been put to significant use in my freshmen and junior classes, encouraging the girls' curiosity and learning in the science fields.

Solar Panel Experiments

Heading toward my Science and Technology classroom this week, I was surprised to find all my students gathered excitedly outside with a solar panel in their center. They were holding up the panel toward the sunlight and had connected the wires to a small motor and fan, which were both running. After the excited chatter died down outside, we entered the classroom where two students had prepared a solar energy presentation for the rest of their classmates. Rose and Innoncensia, two of my top students, had spent the previous week experimenting with the solar panel and reading whatever book portions we could unearth here on solar energy. It was inspiring to see the curiosity of the girls as they questioned each other about the panel -- how exactly do the solar cells work, could we use solar panels to generate energy for cooking our food, is there a way to store the energy for lighting after dark??

The solar panels are serving the introduction to our energy unit, as we launch into discussions of renewable and non-renewable energy sources, and energy transformations such as the panels’ conversion of solar energy into electricity. Finding alternative energy sources is a vital need in this developing African nation, where the hillsides are rapidly becoming deforested and the majority of villagers have no access to electricity. The Malawians’ primary fuel source is wood, but many must walk 2-3 hours into the bush to find wood and carry the heavy loads home on their heads. In addition to the long distances and time-expense, wood-burning fires are also smoky and contribute to lung disease, so the students and staff are eager to hear about alternative options. Already, solar energy has been used in some parts of this nation which receives significant sun: In Embangweni, a small town in northern Malawi, solar panels line the roof of their hospital. Until power lines were erected very recently, the hospital used solar energy as their only electricity source for heating water and operating medical equipment.

Solar Cooker

While they have been amazed at the ability of the solar panel to generate electricity for the small fan, motor, and light bulbs, the students and staff have seem taken even more strongly to a simple and very useful device: the cardboard solar cooker. Our freshmen Integrated Science class recently studied electricity and energy. As part of our unit, Agness, a local Malawian who has experimented with the solar cooker to make rice and eggs at her own home, prepared a presentation for the girls. They discussed the benefits of solar cooking, and how a solar cooker uses the sun to heat water or cook food. After they’d witnessed the cooking of a pot of rice in the center of their own schoolyard, the girls were eager to work in groups constructing their own solar cookers of cardboard pieces and aluminum foil. They even put their solar cookers to the test in a competition to see who was able to heat water to the highest temperature. Each group created a poster outlining how their solar cooker works, and these were displayed throughout the school dining hall to educate the other students.

Wires, Batteries, and Flashlights

When the freshmen students studied electricity, we used wires, batteries, flashlights, and other teaching tools that had all been donated to set up our dining hall as a make-shift electricity laboratory. It’s amazing how something as simple of electrical wires can be hard to find here! The students were eager to experiment at the various stations -- using batteries to light the bulbs, running little motors, examining the inside of a light bulb and flashlight. For the most academically-talented students, a donated hand-powered flashlight had their minds spinning with curiosity. Even now, many of the educational resources have been loaned to a Peace Corps worker at a nearby secondary school to continue the experiments.