A symposium on Science and Society in Africa has encouraged scientists to make their work more relevant and accessible to the public.

Collaborations between everyone, from cosmologists and artists to scientists, writers and musicians, have been explored by the symposium, in Cape Town, which was organized by the South African Young Academy of Science (Sayas), which boasted 50 of the top scientists in South Africa under the age of 40 as members.

“There is a need to both stimulate an interest in science in young people and to create a more engaged society around scientific developments,” said Sayas co-chairperson Tolullah Oni. 

Oni, who was also a senior lecturer in the Division of Public Health Medicine at the University of Cape Town, said she found students were engaged when they were able to relate to a movie such as Contagion, which followed the rapid progression of a lethal airborne virus. 

Similarly, science fiction authors, South African Lauren Beukes and Nigerian American Nnedi Okorafor, said they often drew from scientific research during the writing process.

South African Research Chair Initiative Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Chair for Cosmology Roy Maartens said he encouraged his students to look beyond their often highly technical analysis and relate what they did to broader society.

“What links us all together is that, right through the history of humanity, all humans have looked at the night sky. Every human from time immemorial has a bit of astronomer in them,” he noted.

Maartens also commented on the ‘Shared Sky’ exhibition which brought together artists who were descendants of Australia’s Yamaji people and descendants of |xam-speaking San people of South Africa’s central Karoo. The artists collaborated on an exhibition celebrating the night sky and humanity’s ancient cultural wisdom.

“The fact that we have this knowledge of how hunter-gatherer communities in the Karoo saw the sky is marvellous,” said Shared Sky exhibition curator John Parkington.

Some of the art works have explored creation myths. 

“The Milky Way for the Australians has this dark shape called the Emu … when the Emu was in a certain position in the sky, that was the time the Emu would lay eggs. For the San, animals are often depicted as well, such as eland and wildebeest,” said cocurator Sandra Proselandis.

Describing SKA as the “largest science experiment in Africa”, Maartens said it was an extremely exciting time for scientists. “Through SKA we’ll be looking at issues like: ‘How did the universe begin? What is dark energy? And why is the universe expanding faster and faster.”

Oni said she hoped the discussions would inspire schoolchildren to study science at university and become the next generation of African scientists.  An group of youth reporters from the Children’s Radio Foundation, who are studying at the Centre of Science and Technology High School in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, posed questions to scientists, touching on the Big Bang to the recent Homo Naledi discovery.