CULTURE, Youth and Sport Minister Dr. Frank Anthony yesterday said at the closing ceremony for the Mathematics and Physics Workshops that he hopes the teachers will impart their knowledge to those teachers who did not participate in the workshops. The minister noted that one of the challenges in conducting workshops is that those persons who participate in them do not share their knowledge with others. He said there are thousands of teachers across the country, and while the workshops could not reach them all, he hopes that those who participated will see it as an additional responsibility to share their newly acquired knowledge with the other teachers.

One Physics and three Mathematics interactive workshops were held from August 28 to September 27, 2012, with approximately 50 teachers from all regions of the country. Held at the Walter Rodney Archives on Homestretch Avenue, the workshops were made possible through collaboration of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport; the Ministry of Education and the National Council of Science Museums (NCSM) of India.

The teachers were engaged in making teaching aids to be used in the classrooms on topics such as the Pythagoras Theorem, area of a circle, approximate value of PI, properties of light, types of waves, and the transfer of energy and momentum.

Minister Anthony said he hopes that teachers will demystify science and mathematics in order to get the children to enjoy it and learn that it is simple and fun. He added that the development of science clubs in schools will help to stimulate interest in those subjects.

Dr. Anthony said the Culture Ministry will continue to collaborate with the Education Ministry to move the project forward.

He said there are approximately 400 youth clubs registered with the Culture Ministry, and this can be used as an opportunity to form science clubs in these communities, in order to get more students involved in Mathematics and Science.

Participants of the workshops were presented with certificates of completion and copies of the workshop sessions, which were recorded by the Guyana Learning Channel.

Minister Anthony expressed gratitude to those persons from the NCSM for the great work they had done both with the workshops and the exhibition over the past six weeks. He said their work was well received by the Guyanese people. He also thanked those persons from the ministries, University of Guyana’s Institute of Applied Science and Technology (IAST), and all the other persons who contributed to making both the exhibition and the workshops a huge success.