​A hands-on workshop exploring the wonderful world of ants and how that relates to biodiversity earned the Iimbovane Outreach Project the prize for "Best Workshop: Curriculum" at SciFest Africa recently.

Iimbovane, which means "ants" in iSiXhosa, is an outreach project supported by the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology (C·I·B) based at Stellenbosch University.

The Iimbovane team, consisting of Dorette du Plessis, Londiwe Msomi and Sophia Turner, arrived at SciFest Africa armed with microscopes and a complete mini-laboratory: "Our aim was to surprise learners with fascinating facts about ants, their important role in the ecosystem, and how ants get their scientific names. We also included practical activities such as hunting ants and how to describe an ant's characteristics by using a microscope," says Ms Dorette du Plessis, Iimbovane project manager.

Did you know, for example, that ants have hair on their bodies? Or that some species build underground cities which go down as deep as eight meters?

The workshop also included information about the range of study fields in biodiversity and conservation science at Stellenbosch University.

A learner from Kimberley Boys' High, Lubabalo Nonkonyana, was full of praise after attending the workshop: "It refreshed my knowledge about ants, but I also learned a lot of new things about how important ants are to the environment. Thank you for an awesome show!"

Mr Clive Biggs, life science educator at York High School in George, says he and his colleagues were "absolutely fascinated by the workshop", especially with the microscope work: "It was interesting to see how ants can be used to teach biodiversity and biological classification, both concepts that are in the Life Science curriculum. Suddenly we now have ant experts on the Life Science staff!"

This is the second time that the Iimbovane Outreach Project was selected to be one of the 650 events and activities at Scifest Africa. The Iimbovane Outreach Project, established in 2006, is a long term monitoring project which focuses on ant diversity in different natural and modified landscapes. The project involves educators and learners from more than 18 schools, who assist with the monitoring of ants on their school premises. It is funded by Rand Merchant Bank Fund, AfriSam, and the C·I·B.

SciFest Africa is South Africa's national science festival and the largest in southern Africa. This year it was held from 2 to 8 March in Grahamstown with the theme "A matter of time".

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