Adventure Sport &
Science Tourism: ASST

Changing the Way the World Thinks About Waste, starts with Public Awareness.

Adventure Sport & Science Tourism: ASST

ASST relies on the following assumptions:

• People enjoy what they are good at – living in an instant gratification society means we have to be enjoying stuff while we get good at it.
• Sport connects people. It is a great social marketing tool because it gets people from all backgrounds talking.
• People are inherently curious. We don't like working but we do like fooling around, and trivia fascinates us.
• It is not knowledge, or science, that intimidates us, but the way it which it is packaged.
• Science itself is changing from a autonomous field, to a public and corporate funded field, with the accountability (and related agendas) that comes with it.

Merah Mas aims to use sport to repackage science, in order to make science more accessible to the public. This is an end in itself, to allow people to think about the issues that affect them in a critical way, sothat they can form their own opinion. Merah Mas has no interest what those opinions are, as long as they are informed. Merah Mas makes no distinction between science, religion, or any other worldviews. All we ask is that we talk about all of them, in a safe, positive, cooperative, fun environment.

Past initiatives of ASST include:

• MTN Sciencentre Orienteering with a Twist, May 2009, 2010. For more information please visit:
• SA Orienteering Federation: SAOF
• Peninsula Orienteering Club: PenOC
• Cape Town Sciencentre (previously known as the MTN Sciencentre)
• SAASTA
• PUB
• the WISA YWP WaterBus testrun, 8 October 2010. For more information please visit:
• Merah Mas WaterBus page
• Merah Mas Blog
• The FLOW-WISA Water Week activities, 21 - 27 March 2011. For more information, flog the blog.

The best photographer for this job: Jacques Marais.

A future project is to get more involved with Science Journalism. Useful websites listed below:

• WFSJ - The World Federation of Science Journalists
• ASSAF
• AAAS
• SAASTA