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Namibia: Biodiversity Insect@thon
Namibia: Biodiversity Insect@thon
Date distributed (ymd): 990828
Document reposted by APIC
+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++
Region: Southern Africa
Issue Areas: +economy/development+
Summary Contents:
This posting contains excerpts from e-mail and web reports on
a successful project by the National Museum of Namibia, "an
unprecedented and innovative example of how essential
biodiversity information associated with these huge
collections [of paper records of natural history specimens]
can be rapidly computerized through community-based education
initiatives." More information is available on the web site of
the musem (http://www.natmus.cul.na).
The announcement and the results were also posted in the
African Development Forum pre-conference discussion currently
under way as preparation for the Economic Commission for
Africa's August 25-29 conference in Addis Ababa. For more
information on the conference and discussion archives, see:
http://www.un.org/depts/eca/adf or
http://www.bellanet.org/adf
To subscribe to the ADF on-line discussion, which began in
June and will continue until the conference, send an e-mail
message to lyris@lyris.bellanet.org. In the body of the
message, type:
SUBSCRIBE AISI-HITD-L Firstname Lastname
+++++++++++++++++end profile++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
National Museum of Namibia
National Biodiversity Inventory Programme
Contact Persons: Joris Komen (joris@natmus.cul.na) and
Eugene Marais (eugene@natmus.cul.na)
Introduction
Museums' responsibilities need to be asserted, and,
importantly, the roles of their collections and associated
inventories need to be clarified to the community at large.
Museums should be unanimously committed to popularizing the
usefulness of their collections. Although the increased
awareness of biodiversity preservation has highlighted the
crucial role of biological collections in museums, seemingly
little attention has been given to the urgency of inventory
work by most museums. Essentials are simply not being
computerized fast enough.
The National Museum of Namibia is the custodian of natural
history collections consisting of some 1 - 1.5 million
specimens, most of which are insects. The National
Biodiversity Inventory Programme, a Millennium Project of the
National Museum of Namibia, is intended to set an
unprecedented and innovative example of how essential
biodiversity information associated with these huge
collections can be rapidly computerized through
community-based education initiatives. The National Museum
of Namibia was one of the first African museums to develop a
web site (http://www.natmus.cul.na) making its cultural and
educational resources available on the World Wide Web in 1997.
It is currently the only African museum with searchable online
collection databases.
INSECT@THON The National Museum's Biodiversity Inventory
Programme is intended as a unique community self-help exercise
by creating opportunities for Namibian schools to gain
computer equipment, skills and Internet access in exchange for
community services at the National Museum of Namibia. On
14-15 August 1999, the National Museum, in collaboration with
leading local corporations in Namibia, hosted an INSECT@THON
for students from 15 schools in Namibia. It was the
intention of the INSECT@THON to computerize 70,000
hand-written insect inventory records in two days using an
innovative computer inventory application developed by staff
of the National Museum.
Additional Background
[from http://www.natmus.cul.na/insectathon.html]
The National Museum of Namibia is the custodian of natural
history collections consisting of some 1 - 1.5 million
specimens, most of which are insects. The National Museum's
Biodiversity Inventory Programme is intended as a unique
community self-help exercise by creating opportunities for
Namibian schools to gain computer equipment, skills and
Internet access in exchange for community services at the
National Ministry of Museum of Namibia.
On 14-15 August 1999, the National Museum of Namibia, in
collaboration with leading corporations in Namibia, hosted the
first INSECT@THON for students from 15 schools in Namibia.
It was the intention of the INSECT@THON to computerize 70,000
hand-written insect inventory records in two days using an
innovative computer inventory application developed by staff
of the National Museum.
The INSECT@THON is particularly aimed at Namibian schools
which do not have Internet access for their students and
teachers.
The following schools participated in the 1999 INSECT@THON:
Ruacana Senior Secondary, Ruacana, Omusati
Tsumeb Junior Secondary, Tsumeb, Oshikoto
Enyana Combined, Enyana, Ohangwena
Moreson School, Windhoek, Khomas
Ekulo Senior Secondary, Ekulo, Oshikoto
Dawid Bezuidenhout, Windhoek, Khomas
Suiderlig Secondary, Keetmanshoop, Karas
AME Community, Gibeon, Hardap
Petrus Ganeb Secondary, Uis, Erongo
Dr Fisher Primary, Aminuis, Omaheke
Wennie du Plessis Secondary, Gobabis, Omaheke
Mokaleng Junior Secondary, Aminuis, Omaheke
ELCIN Nkurenkuru High, Nkurenkuru, Kavango
Cornelius Goreseb High, Khorixas, Kunene
Okakarara Secondary School, Okakarara, Otjozondjupa
Each school nominated a team of six students. Students were 11
- 19 years old, and English literacy was prerequisite. The
students did not necessarily have to have any previous
computer experience, but such experience was an advantage.
At 08h00 on 14 August, the students assembled at the NIIT
training centre where they received instructions and training
necessary for the INSECT@THON.
At 09h00, the honourable Minister of Basic Education and
Culture, John Mutorwa, opened the two-day INSECT@THON. There
were compulsory breaks for tea and lunch. The INSECT@THON
continued from 08h30 to 16h45 on 15 August, with compulsory
breaks for tea and lunch. From 16h45 to 18h00 insect records
were counted and validated. At 18h00 the honourable Deputy
Minister of Information and Boadcasting, Ignatius Shixwameni,
presented prizes and awards to the winning schools.
Prizes
A number of local corporations have pledged computer
training, hardware, software, books and Internet subscriptions
as prizes for the competing schools and students. The
first school prize will be a Sun Server, Solaris or Linux OS,
router, ethernet hub, Digicon modem, one workstation, a
two-year 64K leased line Internet subscription, a colour
printer, web development software, and system adminstration
training courses for two students. Second and third school
prizes will comprise standalone PCs (Pentium II/equivalent),
56.6K modems, Inkjet printers, two year dial-up Internet subscriptions, web development
software and Internet training courses. The remaining prizes
include standalone computers (PC Pentium I), modems, two year
Internet subscriptions, web development software and Internet
training courses.
All schools and students will receive participation
certificates, and a host of individual prizes will be
awarded to the participating students, including safaris,
books, software, CDROMS and CDs.
Sponsors:
Bock Jewellers, ADVANTAGE McCANN, AFRINATURE Films, ARCANA
XXII ACORD, BP Namibia, Design Laboratories, Disability
Resource Centre, ET's Liquor Store, GODINHO, HASSELT OPTICS,
INTV, John Muafangejo Art Centre, Kirky's Agencies, KPMG
Chartered Accountants, LOGICAL Networks, MAKALANI SUGAR,
MEGABITE Productions, Ministry of Environment & Tourism, Namib
Pharmacy, Namibia Systems & Programming Services, Namibia
Beverages, NAMIBIA POST, Namibian Vision Care, Namibian
Broadcasting Corporation, NAMIDEF, NAMPOWER, National Museum
of Namibia, NewDeal, Inc, NIIT, Pieter Esterhuizen Barbeques,
Polytechnic of Namibia, PQ NAMIBIA, Radical Re-ell Rox,
Radiowave 96.7 FM, SAMP, Sardinia Pizzeria, SCHOEMANS Office
Systems, SHELL Namibia, Solar Age Namibia, Standard Bank,
TELECOM Namibia, The PC Centre, The Namibian Ministry of Basic
Education & Culture, TotalSPORT, UUNET Namibia
Insecta@thon Results
[from
http://www.natmus.cul.na/biodive/biodinvent.html]
We have good news for you:-). The Insect@thon worked
brilliantly! In spite of the fact that we had a number of
Wintel glitches:-) to deal with prior to event, resulting in
a delayed start - the kids only finished the training process
at 12h00 on Saturday - the results were quite astounding!
From 12h30 to 18h30 on Saturday, and from 08h30 to 16h30 on
Sunday, including half-hour breaks for teas and lunch, (6 + 8
- 2.5 hrs = 12.5 hours), 92 kids from 16 schools (we had a
last minute gate-crashing school ( 3 kids ) that we simply
couldn't turn away - they were so incredibly keen!:-)) managed
to computerize 20, 897 insect inventory records comprising 11
data fields (catalogue number, order, family, genus, species,
collection locality, collector, no. of specimens and day,
month year) representing 97, 696 specimens in the National
Museum's insect collection.
Our immediate post-event validation process picked up 3,232
invalid records over and above the 20, 987 acceptable
inventory records - that's a remarkably low 13% error margin!
Please take note that 66 kids had not had *ANY* previous
computer experience prior to the event! We will provide a more
detailed breakdown of these results on the Insect@thon website
in due course.
Oh, by the way - the three top winning teamsare
Tsumeb Junior Secondary School who managed to computerize a
total of 2,363 records (I think they'll do us proud when they
go to Stockholm next year). Second and third teams were Wennie
Du Plessis High School of Gobabis with 2214 records, and
Suiderlig High School of Keetmanshoop with 2205 records.
Now isn't that simply amazing?!!:-)
PS - by 17h00 on Sunday some 650 webcam requests were logged
at the PC Centre's website - a lot of people came to see the
event "live" over the internet!
Raison d'etre
The Natural History Museum in London has some 65 million
insects in its collections - with hand-written records in
paper catalogues:-). These *hand-written* records in many
first world museums prevent us from obtaining critically
important and *urgently-needed* biodiversity information on
the natural history specimens collected, historically, in
Namibia. We estimate that some 70 % of these collections
originate in the third world. Inasmuch, we strongly believe
that first-world museums are urgently accountable to us. By
pulling off this unprecedented insect@thon stunt with a bunch
of kids in Namibia, we want to send a very clear message to
first world museums - if we can do it, you can too!
Our message, I think, has been quite simple - we have 1.5
million plus insects in our entomology collection (fifth
largest insect collection in Africa), 70,000 hand-written
insect catalogue records, and the usual excuses - no staff, no
money and no technical resources.
We took it upon ourselves to motivate our local corporate
community to support us indirectly by giving them a chance to
be socially responsible by subsidizing school internet and
computerization in exchange for these schools providing the
much needed data-typing pool at our museum, and, hopefully, a
near-future recruitement pool of educated and environmentally,
socially and IT-aware youngsters. We may even have some
budding entomologists in the making!
We think Insect@thon is a brilliant model:-) not only for
other museums, libraries and archives in Africa, but also for
first world institutions:-) Our winning school team (age group
13 - 16) will travel to Stockholm in April next year to carry
out a "mini-insect@thon" at the Riksmuseum - this museum has
some 50 -100,000 Namibian insect specimens in their
collection. We would also like to send the second, third and
fourth winning teams to Academy of Sciences in California, the
Natural History Museum in London and the Natural History
Museum in Berlin - as far as we know, these museums
collectively have some 800,000 Namibian insect specimens in
their collections.
Where to next?
We will carry out a detailed assessment of the validity of the
kids' data-entries - after all, this is an obligatory task of
a museum curator, irrespective of whether the data-typing is
done by employees or kids. Insect@thon *will* become an annual
event and may change, in due course, into a tree@thon or a
mammal@thon, or whatever requires computerization, here in
Namibia, but also in Zambia and Zimbabwe, where the natural
history museums face similar inventory dilemnas. Continuity
will hopefully be assured between events with kids helping
with remote data-capture (using their newly acquired internet
and our webtop databases), web site development for their own
schools and loads of other exciting teenager-oriented
internet-related projects.
How many children are involved?
Insect@thon 1999 directly touched 92 children from 16 schools
all over Namibia, *none* of which presently have
internet-connectivity. Two other schools will receive
computers and internet subscriptions as consolation prizes for
not having been able to join us in the event. 142 team
applications from 32 schools from 11 regions in Namibia
applied to enter the insect@thon. We expect that Insect@thon
2000 will start with regional one-day events for 15 schools
(sans internet) in each region, followed by a national two-day
insect@thon event in Windhoek in August 2000. There are 1600
schools in Namibia of which only 28% presently have
telephones, and only a handful have internet access - these
schools are our target from now until we've got *all* of them
connected to the internet.
This material is being reposted for wider distribution by the
Africa Policy Information Center (APIC). APIC's primary
objective is to widen the policy debate in the United States
around African issues and the U.S. role in Africa, by
concentrating on providing accessible policy-relevant
information and analysis usable by a wide range of groups and
individuals.
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