The FMIPA UI team, chaired by Dr. Dewi Susiloningtyas, a lecturer from the Department of Geography, held a UI Action Program for the Nation with the theme “Application of Spatial Knowledge to Teenagers Through Environmentally Friendly Thematic Space Game Products”, Sunday (10/13/2019) in the Setu Pengasinan area, Depok.
Dr. Dewi Susiloningtyas, a woman familiarly known as Tyas, explained that Setu Pengasinan serves as a source of agricultural business for local residents and is also a tourist attraction that is busy with visitors.
Conditions like this, continued Tyas, cause Setu Pengasinan to experience quite serious environmental challenges, namely waste, while actions and efforts to reduce waste are still not being carried out effectively.
Another issue in the Setu Pengasinan area is the high number of school dropouts among teenagers, most of whom don’t complete high school. Therefore, this program aims to provide them with education, outreach, skills, and a commitment to maintaining the cleanliness and conservation of the Setu environment.
“We encourage young people in Setu to act as agents of change in addressing and mitigating environmental issues,” said Tyas.
With this background, Tyas and her team, namely Ratri Candra, M. Sos., and Fika Afriyani, M. Si., created a thematic space game product by utilizing the Setu area as the game location.
In this thematic game, the FMIPA UI Community Service team involved 15 participants aged 12-14 years who live in the Setu Pengasinan area.
The activity consists of three stages, starting with ice breaking and sang environmental-themed songs. The next stage, to gain a more realistic and comprehensive understanding of the lake’s conditions, participants were divided into three groups.
Each group was invited to walk around the lake, accompanied by a Geography student from the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Indonesia, as facilitator. This stage is called tour de setu.
The third stage involves playing at Saung Nusantara, located adjacent to the lake. Here, participants are invited to observe and describe the game location as it appears in the original space.
This game, which adopts the traditional monopoly game, has a thematic product with three important things, namely action, ideas and obligations related to environmental management (funds).
Action requires participants to take action to reduce waste, particularly inorganic waste. Idea requires participants to provide opinions and solutions related to conservation issues in the lake’s environment. Next, there’s the cleaning fund, which requires participants to contribute to the cleanliness of the lake’s surroundings.
At the end of the activity, the participants expressed their opinions regarding this game activity, and they began to realize that they were committed to protecting the environment around their residence, namely Setu Pengasinan.
Take Baday, for example. This 13-year-old participant said she was happy and enthusiastic about participating in the game. She learned new things from it: there are two types of waste based on their properties: organic and inorganic.
“It was fun and exciting to play, I learned that there is organic and inorganic waste,” said Baday (13 years old),
There’s also 12-year-old Nayla. She recalls something her father once said.
“My father said the lake wasn’t as dirty as it is now. It was still clean and full of birds,” said 12-year-old Nayla.
