The Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Indonesia (FMIPA UI) organized a community service activity in the form of chemistry material enrichment for high school teachers on Wednesday (August 10) and Saturday (August 13) at the Sinar Mas Hall, Multidisciplinary Laboratory Building FMIPA UI – PT Pertamina, UI Campus, Depok.
The Deputy Dean for Education, Research, and Student Affairs, Dr. rer. nat. Budiawan, officially opened the event. In his speech to the participants, he said, “The importance of chemistry in all aspects of life poses a challenge for us together, as well as an opportunity for teachers to convey the role of chemistry more broadly to their students in schools.”
Dr. Asep Saefumillah, M.Si., Chair of the Department of Chemistry, in his remarks stated, “This activity is a form of the Department of Chemistry FMIPA UI’s concern for improving the understanding and mastery of chemistry by high school teachers, and is also part of the Tri Dharma of Higher Education.”
Furthermore, Dr. Asep mentioned that high school teachers have a great opportunity to continue their education to the next level through the Graduate Program at the Department of Chemistry FMIPA UI.
Meanwhile, Dr. Iman Abdullah, Chair of the community service team, said the interest of participants in joining this activity was quite high. There were 70 participants attending the hybrid event.
“The teachers came from various high schools in regions such as DKI Jakarta, Depok, Bogor, Karawang, Bekasi, and Tangerang,” he told the FMIPA UI Public Relations team.
He added that the first day of the community service activity was filled by three lecturers according to their respective fields of expertise, including Dr. Iman. Dr. Iman delivered the first enrichment on chemical equilibrium, starting with an online survey using Mentimeter.
Participants had the chance to share which chemistry topics they found easiest and which were the most difficult. The results showed that most participants considered acid-base topics the easiest, while topics like chemical equilibrium, Ksp, and organic chemistry were considered the most difficult.
Participants were also given a quiz at the beginning to gauge their understanding of chemical equilibrium. On average, only about 50% answered the questions correctly, highlighting the importance of this enrichment activity.
The second topic was delivered by Dr. Helmiyati on chemical kinetics. During the discussion session, participants enthusiastically asked various questions, including the correlation between the “Merdeka Curriculum” in high schools and the topic of chemical kinetics in daily life.
The third enrichment was delivered by Dr. rer. nat. Agustino Zulys. In his presentation themed “Misconceptions in High School Chemistry,” Dr. Agustino explained that there is a common public assumption that chemistry is difficult. To overcome this, chemistry teachers often use analogies linking chemistry principles with everyday phenomena to simplify the material for students.
However, he noted that this approach often leads to misconceptions about the understanding of chemistry itself, both among students and teachers. Therefore, a thorough and correct understanding of chemistry concepts is necessary to avoid misconceptions.
The first day of the community service activities ended with a quiz on the Quizizz platform to assess participants’ understanding of the material presented.
The second day was filled by Dr. Yuni K. Krisnandi, M.Sc., who gave enrichment on chemical bonding. In her presentation, Dr. Yuni said that chemical bonds are the “soul” of chemistry because they determine the stability of compounds and affect the physical and chemical properties of materials.
Before the participants, Dr. Yuni displayed several crystal structure models to deepen their understanding of chemical bonds and related compound structures.
Some crystal models shown included NaCl (cube), diamond, TiO2, ZnS, and a hexagonal structure.
The second enrichment topic was delivered by Dr. Bayu Ardiansah on organic chemistry. Dr. Bayu outlined organic chemical reactions through understanding nucleophiles and electrophiles. The discussion was interactive with case questions, and some participants who answered correctly received book gifts from Dr. Bayu.
Next, the third enrichment topic was delivered by Prof. Dr. Yoki Yulizar, M.Sc., on nanomaterial chemistry. Prof. Yoki discussed the important role of nanomaterials in health, energy, environment, and their synthesis strategies.
At the event, Prof. Yoki gave examples of nanotechnology applications in daily life and simple projects related to nanotechnology that could be applied in high schools. One example was the degradation of dye waste using nano ZnO that can be synthesized simply in school labs using zinc nitrate precursor, a base source, and NaBH4 reducer.
As on the first day, the second day’s activities ended with a quiz. The second day saw more participants attending offline compared to the first day, with 26 attending in person and 35 online via Zoom.
This activity is part of a series of community service events to be held over four days, including August 16 and 20, 2022.
Source : https://sci.ui.ac.id/
