Trip south...to dry out

I spent the latter part of this week taking a quick tour (1500 km) of the southwest portion of Namibia. You can see archived photos from the trip, and a map of our voyage here, or click the photo link to on the top left of the blog. It has been raining constantly (each day) for the past 3 weeks in Windhoek, so it was a nice break to head to a drier part of the country. Even there, however, the rains are producing more grass than farmers have seen in years, and many of them have reached their average annual rainfall, and it's only March.

By the way, that average is 70mm, or about 2.5 inches. Average rainfall in Lincoln, NE is about 700mm, or about 25 inches. Even in far western Nebraska, the average is about 250 mm, or about 9-10 inches. So, this is dry country--on the edge of the Namib desert.

The purpose of the trip was to visit two Polytechnic students doing a 6-month internship at two farms. Their 'mentor' for the in-service training course is Dr. Jankowitz ("Doc": a nickname that makes sense given the low number of PhD's in universities in Namibia), the Head of Department in Nature Conservation--my department. He has been extremely helpful and kind since we arrived. Tristan was in school, so I will have to take Kelly and Tristan back sometime very soon.

It was interesting (two faculty took two full days just to visit two students) to think about implementing the same practice at UNL--we don't visit our internship students. Polytechnic uses the visits to keep students focused on their objectives, and to make contact with 'the industry'--the people in parks and on guest farms and at NGO's that they are producing students for. I think that would be good for UNL, but golly, we could never do that with our current teaching and research load.

Probably the best part of the trip was driving past the farm on which Doc grew up. It was valuable to hear stories of droughts, struggles with the land, family history, and connections of his family to people still scratching out a living on this dry area of Namibia. The stabilized dunes we saw during the trip were reminiscent of the Nebraska Sandhills, although the sand here is red.

The trip had everything a good road trip should have: good company, good conversation, good food, good scenery, and a near-death experience. The story is best-told in photos. View on.

NTN sends ripples through the blogosphere

I believe there is a journalist term for when you report on yourself, as the journalist. Self-gratification and ego-building are common terms, but I can't remember the formal term.

However, I thought some NTN readers might be interested in the following news items:

1. An educational blog for teachers, http://www.instructify.com/ , contacted me and asked to report on the NTN as well as Tristan's blog. The editor is a brother of an SNR graduate student. You can go here to read the article.

2. The School of Natural Resources' science writter, Kelly Smith, added a 'SNR blog role' to our SNR web site--look in the lower right corner here. We have at least two faculty blogging, and I would guess both of us would tell you that 6 months ago, we had not considered this as a way to communicate with masses.

Kelly tells me she has a couple blogs ready to post, in response to massive requests for me to quiet down and let her talk about her experiences. We are enjoying the unique conversations we've had with many of our friends and family over the blog. Keep the comments coming.

Namibia's newest geologist

It's school photo time, and this year we'll have to share photos of our handsome young man via the internet. So, here he is. All 11 years of him.

If you're wondering how Tristan is doing, never fear. He continues to be resilient, and with the exception of a couple of moments of hungering for home and friends from Randolph Elementary and our other local haunts, Tristan is fully engaged with what we've thrown at him.

Recently, he has decided that maybe he'll live in Namibia when he grows up. Another reason for us to retire here. The country needs scientists, and Tristan now believes he may be a geologist.

In fact, Namibia is 122nd of 125 nations ranked in order of the 'availability of scientists and engineers'. So, the number of people running around with advanced degrees is pretty small. It manifests itself in odd places. Like, they have rules that they must hire Namibians, if possible. But, if there are no Namibian experts in a certain field, do you hire a Namibian of less experience or a foreign scientist? The new class of faculty at Polytechnic includes about 50% foreigners. Just not enough people in country.

Many people at our Fulbright orientation told us that Namibia is "Africa for beginners" when we heard we were heading this direction. And, it's true that the lights stay on in Namibia. There is decent internet access. The water is clean. You don't have to bleach your vegetables before you eat them. So, the mystery is how a country can keep the lights on, but still rank below almost every other African country in terms of people that know how to design the bulbs. Sometimes, I think that perhaps they expect more out of people with less training that we do in the US. Our Polytech students get thrown into some significant positions with only a 3-year National Diploma (not a bachelor's degree). Maybe it's the continued help from the outside that keeps everything humming. I'm not sure I know the answer yet--it is something to keep thinking about.

The recent change in political administrations in the US is an encouraging step for the use of science in decision-making that affects the nation and the world (see my University of Nebraska colleague's interesting blog on this subject, however). If you want to vision [warning: impending vague editorial comment] what a hypothetical country might look like if it has a gap between science and decision-making, Namibia isn't a bad place to turn. In Namibia's case, it's not that it's ignoring its scientists or twisting their research, it's that it doesn't have many to turn to. There are so many ecological areas and species in Namibia that are poorly studied. So many schools that need teachers with more background. So many HIV programs that need people in place who understand the problem. So many problems that need some creative thinking.

Namibia: Africa for beginners? Hardly. It's just Africa with lights whenever you want them. Still Africa, and struggling to keep up in many cases. If you're a scientist (and I'm not just talking about those wearing white coats and safety goggles), I'd encourage you to think about how you can help countries like Namibia. It may take a village to raise a child. Or something like that.

So, if Tristan wants to be a geologist in Namibia someday, great. They need him worse than we do in the US. I just hope he doesn't mind some company. He is a handsome guy, isn't he?!

Held hostage by my own stupidity

Today's blog is a short story, with a happy ending.

Readers of NTN keep asking for the nitty-gritty of life in Namibia. Well, one interesting facet of the constant security concerns (which are less than almost anywhere else in Africa, but still are omnipresent) is that everything is locked. A prime example is the toilets (here, toilet refers to the entire room, not the fixture) in my office building at Polytechnic. I was given a key to the toilet on my floor. If I'm on another floor and nature calls, too bad...have to go all the way up to my floor (top floor).

What about the students that have class in our building? We have to give them a key, if we want to let them use the facilities. Our choice. Otherwise, they have to go to a different building.

And, the other piece of information you need--many of the keys in Namibia are 'skeleton' keys--the old-style keys that look like they should open an antique trunk, or a city gate. And, without too much foreshadowing to ruin the plot, these keys tend to break--I've already broken two of them trying to unlock doors in our house.

So, to set the stage for one of my most embarrassing moments, I had attended several pre-semester meetings/workshops where faculty were told and told and told to be on time for class. Polytechnic is trying to distance itself from other institutions where faculty may never show up for class. So, I've got it--come to class on time.

During the first week of classes, I was covering Plant Studies (don't ask...) and Ecology (much better) for another professor who was on a research mission in the North. These are first-year students, and I was on edge to make sure they started their first semester with someone who was on time.

On Friday, I had Plant Studies from 7:30-9:00 a.m. Very early for me. Then, Ecology at 9:30-10:30. So, I took a break between classes--went to my office to get my notes for Ecology, and visited the men's room. Now, I figure that if they give us a key, we're supposed to use it. Thus, when I went in, I locked the door behind me so that some rogue student couldn't come in while I was busy, thwarting the precise security system.

Of course, when I went to unlock the door to leave, my key snapped. Locked in the toilet. No cell phone. Doh! Three minutes until class starts, and counting. Two. One. I'm late. One minute late. Two. Three. Four. Five. Didn't even bring a manuscript to read...

Luckily, the janitor came along to clean the toilet, and I was released unharmed. The students were very keen to remind me, when I arrived, that I was late. But, they also enjoyed the story. The lesson is--make sure you take some reading material with you when you go visit the toilet--you might be there awhile.

Now, I am experiencing another side of life here--waiting for the requisition to clear so that someone can make me a new key. Still don't have it.

A fungus among us

During the past few weeks, we've seen folks standing by the side of the road, holding fungus. That may be one thing that sets us apart from most readers of NTN. It's been raining every day, and the rainy season brings out the fungus in all of us, eh?!

In this case, the fungus is locally called "Omajoba" and they grow around the base of the large termite mounds (some 6-10 feet tall)that dot the landscape north of Windhoek. I bought one today for N$20 (US$2) from a guy near Okahandja. I had been on a field trip with a range management professor to one of his study sites--some photos of that on the photo page.

Termites and fungus have a symbiotic relationship, which you can read about at the web site where I politely borrowed the photo to the right, of the termite mound.

There is some concern (we can't have fun without concern, eh?) that the mushroom may be overharvested. Certainly many people seem to make their living at this time of year from selling the 'shrooms on the side of the road.

But, ecosystem devastation aside, I brought the lovely, large fungus home, dispatched it quickly and humanely, and cooked it up in some butter. It won't replace morels from Western Iowa in my book, but it was edible and tasted pretty good.

The value of education--preach to me!

Today (Wednesday) was the official Academic Opening at Polytechnic. Classes were canceled for 1.5 hours, and chairs set up in the biggest parking lot on campus. A stage was erected. Sun shades were unrolled. A choir showed up (I didn't know Polytechnic had a choir--they are very good).

The Rector spoke. The chairman of the Board of Directors spoke. The Honorary Dr. Theo-Ben Gurirab spoke. The latter gentleman is the current speaker of Parliament. He was prime minister of Namibia from 2002-2005, and served as SWAPO's rep to the United Nations. He served as President of the UN General Assembly in 1999.

I was struck by three things during the Opening.

First, Namibians have a beautiful National Anthem. If you want to hear another crowd (not our crowd today) singing it, you can go here. But, our crowd sounded pretty much like the crowd in the video link.

Second, the students are respectful. It started to rain lightly during the Honorary Dr. Gurirab's speech. Very few people bolted for the sidelines. Umbrellas popped up, and most stayed put.

Third, Namibians value education. Each speaker made a point of talking about how Namibia was not going to join the world's economic powers through sale of their natural resources. Namibia, the speakers suggested, can only join the world through wealth creation that happens through education. Plea after plea to students to study hard and join the quest to improve the country. "It is your duty." "It is your responsibility." "It must happen for Namibia to prosper." In fact, the Poly's theme for this academic year is "Wealth Creation in the New Economy".

I couldn't agree more with the speakers--there is a massive gap between those with a lot and those with little in the country. And, education will bridge that gap to some extent. Closing that gap depends on some other political things happening, as well.

But, hearing education being touted as so critically important was so new to me. We don't preach to our students in Nebraska that their state is depending on their new ideas and contributions. And, of course, Nebraska is depending on them. Maybe not to the extent that Namibia is depending on these young people in the photo, but Nebraska (and IA and MA and TX and OH...) certainly are depending on our next generation. Especially in the field of natural resource manaement--issue after issue after issue is dependent on scientists helping to frame decisions, to support decisions with information, and to 'invent' new solutions to complex problems.

Maybe it's time for us to start preaching a bit? Do our students realize how important they are? Do they realize the magnitude of their opportunity to attend college and get a degree? After today, I'm guessing perhaps, on average, not as much as the students sitting next to me at Polytechnic's Academic Opening.

How to cap an undergraduate program

My colleagues and I at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Fisheries and Wildlife major have been struggling with a problem during the past year. We've been too successful in recruiting students, and have no new faculty to spread the workload. Two years ago, we had 110 students, and last fall (2008) the major was up to 156 students.

So, how do you cap a program? Should you? If you don't, faculty may burn out and leave. If you do, the University loses much-needed revenue (and the Deans don't like you as much). If you don't, we potentially turn out more students than can be employed in the region. If you do, other programs will probably let those students in to their program.

And, how do you cap? Best scoring students? First ones to sign up?

At Polytechnic of Namibia, Nature Conservation has set a limit on the number of students that they can accept, with the major reason being that there are only so many jobs in the country. In fact, the entire university has caps on each program. The photo at the right shows how Polytechnic administers the cap. They have a minimum score for entry into each program, and when enough students sign up, up goes the simple sign. Go home, we're full...!

As of yesterday, we hit the limit during registration. Approximately 10,000 students accepted. The Registrar sent an email today to faculty, essentially saying, "I've told the students (who were not accepted) to go home, but they are still hanging around. Maybe in a few days they will realize we are full."

My morning chuckle

I thought I'd share a sign that makes me chuckle each morning on the way to my office. Context: Namibia was once a German colony. Lots of German names here. And, elevators are called 'lifts'. Just a little word play--can you change the name of the elevator company to a major motion picture by changing 2 letters?

If you need help with the joke, click here. It helps to be a movie buff. Just makes you wonder if Oskar left Germany after WWII and came to Namibia to found an elevator company...?

Adventures in problem-based learning!

Tuesday started like any other day. But, it soon became apparent that the Problem-Based Learning Gods had aligned themselves in the stratosphere. I promised to blog a bit about teaching, so we'll start with this...

Tuesday morning was the 'newcomer parents' coffee at Windhoek International School. After mingling, the elementary principal spoke to us about the School's inquiry based education program. As a proponent of Problem-Based Learning at the college level, I was struck by the interesting parallels of K-12 and college teaching (which are usually viewed as distinct and managed distinctly--like the fact that K-12 teachers are required to get education courses and college teachers usually are not...). Mr. Manly quoted the exact same statistics that I had heard 2 weeks ago at a pre-semester teaching workshop at Polytechnic--regarding the need for a new approach to education.

Namely:
1. The top 10 careers, currently, were not in existence 10 years ago. Think biofuels, information management, nanotechnology, etc.
2. The Honors-level college graduates from China or India (pick one) outnumber the total population of Great Britain and definitely Namibia. So, they have more smart people than 'we' have people. Think that will affect global competition?
3. There are so many 'facts' generated each year, it is impossible to teach students all the 'facts' they need. Thus, the age of content-based education is over. Not possible, anymore. What is important is to teach problem-solving and critical thinking. If one has a problem, how do you make decisions and find the information you need to make that decision. Now--problem is--how to you test that learning with a multiple choice test? Answer: you don't.

After the coffee, I headed to school, where I had prepared to lead the first day's introduction to a new problem case in the Natural Resource Management course I'm helping with. The faculty at Polytechnic had been encouraged to add case studies to their curriculum by an outside consultant. I arrived in time to suggest implementing a technique I used in Nebraska: problem-based learning. It fit perfectly with their needs and it was a great opportunity for me to see if I could pull of a problem case discussion with students in a different culture than I was used to teaching.

The problem case is supposed to be 'ill-structured'--that is, it is a story or description of a problem that uses jargon and talks about issues that quickly make students realize they need to learn several things to solve the problem. If you're really interested in problem-based learning, you can go here to learn more details. But, the bottom line is that I created a letter from a landowner who was writing to a Ministry of the Environment and Tourism biologist, and the landowner needed some help creating a management plan for a game farm. If you want to read the entire letter, you can click here.

I started by describing 'why' we were going to be doing something different. These were 3rd-year students (juniors in the states' jargon) who had mostly been lectured to during their educational careers. Their looks told me they were a little suspect. Hmmm...not sure this would work at that point. I handed out the letter and let them read it. Faces starting to concentrate. Smiles appearing. Some major scribbling of notes going on. Maybe this will work. I should add that the amount of concentration was higher than students in Nebraska, mostly because English was not their first language. Most of them read it twice.

I split them into groups of 3-4 students and had them list things that they would need to learn. After about 15 minutes, I had to break off discussions--they were very knowledgeable and had very good thoughts. No one was talking about what they were doing that night for dinner, or what happened to the local cricket team. They were into the problem. It worked (sorry for the poor quality cell phone photo).

We came back together as a group to make the 'master list' of learning issues on the board (see photo up top). There were even constructive disagreements and discussions as we added items to the board that would need to be flushed out during the next few weeks of the course. Most of the students had spent the past year doing an internship somewhere in the country--that's what they do during their sophomore year, or 'second year'. So, they had experiences to draw on--one young man knew that plains zebras shouldn't be kept on this game farm because of habitat needs. A young lady was adamant that the water supply issue needed to be investigated. Another young lady was very interested in learning about the home ranges of all the game species, because the farm only had so much forage capacity. Indeed!

I went back to my office feeling very confident that (1) the semester was going to be a good one, (2) that problem-based learning can be used anywhere in most any situation, and (3) that Namibia's environment is soon to be in the hands of some very competent professionals. The passion was palpable. And, that's always the goal.

A drive in the countryside...come along via video

Apologies to readers of NTN for no news except for a funny goat story during the past two weeks. School started at Polytechnic, with a workshop for distance students. All of a sudden, life got busy. I'll blog about teaching soon. We haven't explored far into Namibia, yet, but are enjoying our small trips.

On Saturday, we took the morning to visit the oldest game farm in Namibia, according to their signage: Duerstenbrook. The name means "duck forest", and it was situated in a beautiful bend in a river, overlooking a valley. We'll put some photos on the Picasa link to show the scenery. This will be a video-laden blog for your enjoyment.

We traveled to Duerstenbrook with a fellow Fulbright family. They have 3 kids, and recently purchased a Land Rover. Of course, we are employing our massive field vehicle, Polly, our Toyota Corolla.

We left town bright and early, and arrive a bit after 9 for the morning cat feeding at Duerstenbrook. They have 2 leopards and 7 cheetahs in fenced enclosures. The kids all enjoyed seeing cats close-up.

Cheetahs are an interesting creature, with several adaptations that allow them to be efficient hunters. We have heard that cheetahs have a poor sense of smell (they don't track their prey--they kill it and eat it quickly, because other, bigger cats and hyenas will come chase them away) and that they are far-sighted--having excellent vision to see prey in the distance, but very poor sight close-up. We got some pretty good evidence of this during the feeding today--the tour driver tossed some meat that got hung up on a thorn in a tree, above the ground. The cat in the video is actually the third cat to try to find the meat. They could smell it 'somewhere', but could they see it? Could they find it? At one point, he looks right at it, and it swings right above his head. Take a look:

After the cat drive, we saw some 'wild' wildlife on the way back to the main road. We passed a pretty big herd of impalas that were enjoying the lush grass along the river:

The road to Duerstenbrook included an 18-km stretch of gravel, and most of it was very good. Because of high water across the main road, we were directed by small signs on a detour through some two-track pasture roads, through 4 gates, and forded the river at a better location. Even this crossing made us get out to check water depth to see if Polly could make it across. Of course, she could! We took this video on the way out:

It's been raining a lot near Windhoek, and the temperatures have been much cooler than when we arrived--still in the 70's and 80's. Other quick updates:

--Tristan has a part in "Fiddler on the Roof" which will be put on by the International School's middle grades. He's the butcher. They only had 4 boys try out, so the lead male parts are played by girls--tradition! If I were a rich man, I'd buy you all plane tickets to come watch. I'm not sure of the production date, but it will be here soon (quickly go the days...). I'm not sure if it will be held at sunrise or sunset. OK, enough 'Fiddler' puns. Try to keep your balance...

--Tristan has started two sports at WIS (Windhoek Int'l School): track and field, and baseball. After only two practices, he represented WIS in the city track meet (private schools) in the shot put. He got 5th place. Baseball is a new sport at WIS--started by one of the Fulbright dads, who got a nice donation of gloves and other equipment from a Michigan little league team. Namibia is all about cricket, so baseball is new for most kids at WIS. Both sports practice once a week after school.

--We enjoyed an afternoon at the US Ambassador's house last weekend--she invited all Americans in Namibia to come chat and enjoy hamburgers and hot dogs and some American movie trivia games. There were about 80 folks there--and 650 Americans are in Namibia on 'extended stays' (longer than 3 months).

--Regular classes start this week at Polytechnic. I'm teaching a research methodology (research proposals and statistics) by distance to 4th year students and helping with a natural resource management course. We're going to draw up a management plan for a local game farm--introducing problem-based learning ideas.

--We got our first mail from the US--took a bit over 1.5 weeks from Iowa and Nebraska. Arrived just fine. It was a happy moment!