Microscope kits for science
ACCOMPANIED by their teachers, a group of pupils from SK St Paul, Seremban paid a visit to The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus (UNMC) to use microscopes.
This was as a result of a project to set up Microscope Activity Kit loans by the Royal Microscopical Society, in Malaysia.
Dr Susan Anderson from the School of Medicine at The University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom worked with the Royal Microscopical Society to create the Microscope Activity Kits.
“Microscopes are a great way of getting students enthusiastic about science as it encourages discovery. By using these microscopes, students can also create their own experiments,” she said.
The event with the primary school pupils at UNMC marked the launch of Microscope Activity Kit loans programme in Malaysia.
Organised in collaboration with the Department of Biomedical Sciences at UNMC, School of Medicine at The University of Nottingham and Royal Microscopical Society in the UK, a series of activities were lined up for the pupils.
These included activities on nutrition and crime scene investigations. The pupils were also given the opportunity to explain their experience in using the kits. They described, interpreted, detailed and solved problems during the experiments.
“The objective of this exercise is to help pupils consider science as a creative and enjoyable subject where they can discover.
“The other objective is to encourage school teachers to combine science with other topics such as arts, literacy, maths, technology as they all work well with science when you are using a microscope.” Dr Anderson added.
She said that it was a pleasure coming to Malaysia and seeing the students use the microscopes.
She said the pupils were interested and engaged. She added that she had similar experiences with pupils in the UK and Ireland.
Prof Ting Kang Nee and her col- leagues from the Department of Biomedical Sciences at UNMC, saw the potential in using these microscope kits to make learning more interesting in Malaysia.
She was excited when the Royal Microscopical Society agreed to send 16 microscopes to UNMC.
This RMS-Nottingham joint effort will enable children in Malaysia to reap benefits from the project.
“These microscopes are available for loan to local schools.
“Teachers who are interested to use these kits to supplement their teaching activities are invited to contact us.
“In the near future, we are looking into holding workshops for school teachers to develop more learning activities,” she said.