The Earth Observation division of the South African National Space Agency (Sansa) officially launched its Fundisa 2013 educational resources in Pretoria on Tuesday. These are directed at the country's universities and students and now, for the first time, at high school pupils as well.

"Fundisa means to inculcate, to bring across, knowledge," explained Sansa executive director: corporate services Zweli Ndziba. The Fundisa resources now comprise the Fundisa disk, aimed at universities; the Fundisa portal, aimed at individual students; and the new Fundisa disk school edition. "They are designed to inspire the youth."

The Fundisa programme was launched in 2009 by a Sansa precursor agency, the Satellite Applications Centre of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. It provides Earth observation data, on disks, to universities, to allow them to use it for research and training. In 2012, about 18 Fundisa disks were distributed to South African universities. In addition, the disks now also contain Earth observation knowledge as well as the data.

The original disk programme has since been supplemented by the development of the Fundisa portal, which is an online Earth observation resource that allows students direct access to Sansa and its Earth observation specialists. "It also increases outreach and can accommodate large data sets," noted Sansa remote sensing specialist Hugo de Lemos.

The new Fundisa disk school edition is a DVD packaged with satellite imagery,  the Sansa edition of the Quantum geographic information system (a popular open source geographic information system package), tutorials and reading material. It is aimed at grades 10 to 12 (the highest three grades in South African high schools). "It is designed to excite interest in Earth observation," stated De Lemos. "It's being piloted in a few schools." The schools selected are quite close to Sansa, to make it easy for the agency to provide support to them. If the pilot programme is successful, it will be extended to other schools.