FRIDAY, 6 MAY – The Faculty of Psychology and Education (FPP) Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) recently held a Science and Technology Education Community Programme involving 48 students of Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan (SMK) Kota Marudu and SMK Langkon.

According to the programme supervisor, Dr. Siew Nyet Moi @ Sopiah Abdullah, the programme was conducted by students from the Master’s in Education Postgraduate Programme to provide support to students in the rural areas by joining activities in designing as a way to solve problems creatively and in an innovative manner using the STEM concept.

“The postgraduate students act as coordinators, facilitators and assessors, whilst PhD and undergraduate students assisted as facilitator and evaluator to 10 groups for two STEM activities,” she said.

Two activities were conducted during the programme involving problem-solving and existing knowledge to test the creativity of participants.

“The first STEM activity centred around the Sungai Bandau, Kota Marudu bridge, which was dilapidated.  Students worked in groups and identify everyday life problems caused by the situation and submit new invention to overcome these problems.

‘Meanwhile, the second STEM activity centres around the El Nino phenomenon that is currently experienced by the country.  Through these activities, students apply their existing knowledge and past experiences to create a prototype with green technology concept to reduce the impact of El Nino towards the environment and on ourselves,” added Dr. Siew.

She said, as a whole, the programme achieved its objective when students themselves said the programme encouraged them to think out of the box to produce appropriate ideas to solve any problems raised.

Also present were representatives from SMK Kota Marudu, Yusniza Azali and SMK Langkon, Pang Poon King. – (fl)

Source: FPP