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Dave Pepler and Science Café Stellenbosch make TV debut at Woordfees
Author: Media & Communication, Faculty of Science
Published: 27/09/2021

Well-known environmentalist Dave Pepler and Science Café Stellenbosch will make their debut television appearance as part of the Toyota US Woordfees package on DStv next week.

Since 2015, Dave's hosting of the Stellenbosch Science Cafés has become a regular attraction at Woordfees, tackling topics ranging from the human microbiome and swarm intelligence of termites, to tasting honey bush tea, the link between sugar and stress and the evolution of skin colour.

This year, Dave will confront the climate change crisis from the perspective of the world's oceans and specifically that of the Southern Ocean – that vast and stormy patch of ocean stretching uninterrupted from the farthermost tip of the African continent to Antarctica.

His guest is Alakendra Roychoudhury, professor in environmental and marine biogeochemistry in SU's Department of Earth Sciences.

Part of the conversation is a slide show with an animation of the major ocean currents circulating the globe, the largest and strongest of these being the Antarctic Circumpolar Current circling Antarctica. Another animation shows the rise in global temperature since 1880.

“Prof Roychoudhury does not beat around the bush," says Dave. “This is by far the most important topic I've ever addressed in a science café conversation."

Science Café Stellenbosch will be broadcast at 16:15 on 1 October 2021 on DStv channel 150 (dates and time are subject to change).

  • Click here for the full Woordfees programme guide.

On the photo: Dave Pepler (left) in converation with Prof Alakendra Roychoudhury during the recording of Science Cafe Stellenbosch at HomeBrew Films in Cape Town. Photo: Wiida Fourie-Basson​