UNAIR Department of Chemistry Holds Learning Management Workshop and Fun Chemistry Experiments for Teachers and Students of SMA Muhammadiyah 8 Cerme, Gresik
As a form of community service implementation, the lecturers from the Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science and Technology, Universitas Airlangga, organized a series of activities on Tuesday (21/6). The series of activities included a scientific writing workshop, a social media utilization workshop for learning, and “fun chemistry experiments.” The activities were held at SMA Muhammadiyah (SMAM) 8 Cerme, Gresik, as a result of the collaboration between both parties. The event was attended by at least 40 teachers from SMAM 8 Cerme and nearby high schools, as well as around 40 students who also participated in the series of activities.
Scientific Writing Workshop
The scientific writing material was provided for both teachers and students. The workshop on scientific writing for teachers was presented by Dr. rer. nat. Ganden Supriyanto, M.Sc., a Chemistry lecturer at FST Unair who has been actively serving as a judge in the Student Creativity Program.
“Writing is easy. The most important thing is the willingness. Once you have the willingness and motivation, it will be easier to develop your writing,” said Dr. rer. nat. Ganden.
He emphasized that extensive reading is necessary to produce good scientific work. By reading extensively, the ability to write with proper grammar also increases. Additionally, by reading from various sources such as research reports, papers, research journals, and information on the internet, ideas also develop further.
Another important aspect of scientific writing is topic selection. When choosing a topic, we can conduct observations and explorations of our surroundings. The hope is that the topic will be something interesting and solvable through research, resulting in certain innovations beneficial to society.
“For example, around SMAM 8, there are many ental trees and fish ponds. These can be used as topics for scientific papers,” said the German-educated lecturer. He mentioned several topics, such as making fish catch preservatives from ental fruit husks, making fertilizer from pond sludge deposits, and clarifying oil with natural materials around us.
At the end of his presentation, Mr. Ganden encouraged the teachers to inspire students to think innovatively about problems in our surroundings, leading to research beneficial to the community.
The scientific writing material for students was delivered through group mentoring. Each group consisted of 4-5 students with one lecturer as a facilitator. Each group discussed examples of scientific papers and debated them. From this activity, students received material and were more active in discussions and expressing their opinions.
Workshop on Utilizing Social Media for Learning
The pandemic and the advancement of the digital era have driven the need for learning to be delivered in an enjoyable and easily accessible way for students. This requires lecturers to be more creative in managing their teaching methods. One way to achieve this is by utilizing social media. In this session, teachers were provided with material and training on using the Camtasia application to create educational videos. Participants were also guided on how to upload the videos they made to social media platforms like YouTube. This material was presented by the Chemistry computation expert from FST UNAIR, Dr. Imam Siswanto, and the Head of the Department of Chemistry at FST UNAIR, Zakki Fahmi, Ph.D.
Fun Chemistry Experiments
This activity aimed to introduce chemistry and provide students with the idea that chemistry is an enjoyable science. It’s not only about learning theory but also about engaging in practical experiments. In this event, students were invited to experiment with Chemistry students from FST UNAIR who were involved in community service. They conducted several experiments, such as elephant toothpaste, invisible ink, alginate gel bead, and lava lamp. The activity was exciting because students could directly try out the chemistry experiments and see the fascinating results.
The enthusiasm of the participants towards the series of community service activities was very positive. This was evident from the expressions of the participants and the feedback provided by both teachers and students.
“An extraordinary event. We gained a lot of new knowledge and experiences, such as how to write a good scientific paper and create engaging learning media. This activity is crucial for enhancing the capacity of teachers in the teaching process. I hope the established synergy can continue smoothly, resulting in other beneficial activities,” said one of the teachers.
“I am very happy to spend my school holiday participating in this beneficial activity, like this seminar. Besides gaining knowledge about how to write a good and correct scientific paper, I also got to experiment directly,” said one of the students to the committee.
Source: Web kimia.fst.unair.ac.id
