Students at Grace Mampong Ashanti (MA) Junior High School (JHS) in Ghana’s Ashanti Region received a string of prizes including school paint, and a science set after being crowned runner up in the first-ever national schools science competition.
Known as The JUNEOS Challenge, the initiative aims to promote STEM education in Ghana and make learning practical. Children from schools across the country competed to be crowned the best in Ghana by using everyday household items to create innovative experiments based on the country’s science curriculum. Competing schools, students and teachers across Ghana were featured on TV.
Blessing Asantewaa Botah represented her school, Grace MA JHS in Mampong, Ashanti Region along with school science teacher Emmanuel Boateng Otchere.
Emmanuel speaks about the JUNEOS Challenge
Using everyday objects including a long plastic straw, knife, and a straight pin, Blessing constructed an anemometer – a device used in weather forecasting to measure wind speed and direction. The instrument helped her school secure their place as runners up in the Challenge.
First place: St Dominic RC School for their transformation of energy through a portable torchlight experiment.
Second place: Kpeve Model Basic School for their fish pirate detector.
Third place: Efutu MA Basic School Cape Coast, Central Region for their operation of hydraulics experiment.
Launched by edutech platform WeGo Innovate in 2019, the initiative is partnership with the Ghana Association of Science Teachers, Ghana STEM Network, GHScientific, and The Exploratory.
WeGo Innovate Founder Charles Agbemashior said: “The ultimate goal is to make practical STEM teaching and learning the norm at all education levels in Ghana through different fun, innovative, educational activities such as the JUNEOS Challenge.”
* images 1: Science teacher Emmanuel with some of the donated paint.
* images 2: Emmanuel with some other prizes.
* images 3: Emmanuel, who trained the students and Social Studies teacher Oduro Rockson.
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