We received funding form the the National Film and Video Foundation to create an animation pilot and met with Lesego Vorster (top left) who leads The Hidden Hand Studios and Clyde Beech our art director to make a plan for 2023. It’s very exciting and we hope it will lead to a full series that will show hundreds of thousands of young people how important and cool science is.

With funding from GENUS and the Canadian Fund for Local Initiatives, we have printed our comic! 3,000 copies of the comic will be distributed for free through out upcoming museum exhibit. If you’re in Durban, you can pick up a copy at the KZNSA or Ike’s Books and Collectables. We hope to find other stores or distributors in 2023.

Four SuperScientists will be featured on science outreach vehicles travelling throughout South Africa! Through a collaboration with CASME and funding from MAHLE Behr, the Science2Go vehicles will feature Dr Keneiloe Molopyane (Bones - NatGeo explorer and archaeologist), Mpho Kgoadi (Cosmic Dawn - astrophyicist), Dr Francois Naude (Synaptic - teacher and teacher trainer) and Sanera Maharaj (Insight - engineer at MAHLE). We have also provided 2,000 cards of these characters for the Science2Go programme.

We’re excited to see the vehicle when it launches March 4th and can’t wait to see kids posing along with these characters as the vehicles travel rural and underserved schools.

Launched on #InternationalDayofWomenandGirlsinScience Faith February is a PhD student at the University of Cape Town who studies marine aerosols. These are tiny particles created by wind and waves, that float through the air and impact the global climate - how much they do is a big part of her research.

Marine aerosols can start as sea spray, when you go to the beach you know it, that misty wetness that covers EVERYTHING. Those droplets contain salt, organic molecules, sulphur compounds even and water. Those misty drops you feel are huge in comparison to the aerosols they become as the water in them evaporates. If you think about how much ocean there is and how many waves are crashing out at sea or against the coasts, then the amount of marine aerosols is mind boggling.

So how are they involved in climate change? These aerosols absorb and scatter light and heat and they can drift high into the atmosphere and even be involved in forming clouds which also have a role in how climate is regulated. Given how many marine aerosols there are, it would be good to know a lot about them but with a lot of things, particularly in hard to reach places, we don't know enough about marine aerosols. Faith's work is hoping to change that and provide better information that can be used in climate change models.

Thanks to a group of translation students in France we will soon have almost 20 SuperScientists - their cards and profiles - translated into French! We’re busy trying to connect with organisations that can help get them out to French speaking learners. If you have connections please be in touch. You can download all 8 that are complete so far at bit.ly/3JzjV3b

We want young people to show us their creativity. Our first winner has been announced, who drew this awesome roboticist and her mech suit and won R250. We’ll have another for February and every month this year. You can draw us a scientist, real or imagined, write a poem or an essay, send a TikTok, or one of our colouring in pages. However you want to express your interest in science and technology. Open to all learners from grade 1-12. Email or WhatsApp or DM us to send your submission.

Thanks to our funder The Sage Foundation and individual donors we have been able to give thousands of SuperScientists activity books, calendars, and trading cards to young people across South Africa in the last month (over 10,000 in total) Partnering with organisations, schools, libraries, and clinics that have deep networks, honed logistics, or are a people and places that young people trust we have shared our materials far and wide. It makes us so happy to see the responses from people when they see what we’ve made and when they think about how the young people they work with will receive them. Even better yet has been to see kids pump their fists and do happy claps when we have gone to schools and shared the materials with them or when we’ve seen kids, after leaving a classroom turned to their neighbor comparing each others cards. It’s so affirming to meet the people and organisations that trying to do their part to improve young people’s lives and to be part of that greater mission.

We’re making our materials easier for young people to enjoy. Translating them into different languages and giving people what they want, a good story to listen to - podcasts are popular for a good reason.