ACEP took part in the festival, with a series of workshops where learners met the challenges of underwater engineering head on by building "ROVs" from simple household materials. Gaji Magajana from SAIAB also presented a series of workshops for teachers, introducing ACEP learning materials which would help them educate their pupils on ocean careers and ocean sciences generally. ACEP and SAIAB had a joint stand at the Monument, the main venue for the festival, which showcased a series of posters and featured a life-size model of a coelacanth.

Dr. Tony Ribbink, ACEP's Director and Berny Snow, Manager of ACEP's Environmental Education Programme, jointly gave a lecture. Dr. Ribbink informed the audience about the various mysteries and enigmas which surround these ancient fish, probing questions of how coelacanths survived unchanged for so long virtually unaltered, and why they remain today as "living fossils" when the odds seem so heavily stacked against them.

A further tantalising question is whether South Africa's own population of these strange fish is a happy accident, perhaps a series of strays washed down from further north, or if in fact, the population at Sodwana Bay represents the southernmost range of a population extending throughout the western Indian Ocean. His brief introduction to these topics left the audience clear that more research was needed to answer these and other pressing questions about coelacanths and their ecosystem.

Berny Snow presented the work she and her team are doing to inform the public both in South Africa and further abroad of the programme and marine sciences generally. Her brief overview included a look at some of the curriculum-centric materials developed by ACEP for learners of all ages to encourage an interest in ocean sciences and careers at sea, and gave a glimpse of large numbers of people she and her team have reached through workshops, school visits and expos, exciting ship visits and a range of other activities.

SciFest provides an invaluable annual opportunity for anyone with an interest in Science, Engineering and Technology to attend an exciting programme of lectures and other events guaranteed to feed that interest, and if at all possible, we suggest anyone with a passion - or even an interest they would like to grow - make plans to visit in 2007.