Fostering Performance in Hands-on Laboratory Work with the Use of Mobile Augmented Reality (AR) Glasses

The learning of laboratory skills is essential in science education, but students often get too little individual guidance in this area. Augmented reality (AR) technologies are a promising tool to tackle this challenge and promote students’ high-level learning and performance in science laboratories. Thus, the purpose of this study was (1) to design an AR-assisted learning environment to support individual knowledge construction, (2) to investigate students’ learning processes and learning outcomes and (3) to examine the usability of the system. Pharmacy students (n = 16) were assigned to experimental (n = 10) and control (n = 6) groups and performed the same laboratory work together with pre- and post-tests. The experimental group worked with AR glasses that provided additional support and timely guidance during the work with additional info-screens, questions related to choosing correct reagents and laboratory tools and think-aloud questions, whereas the control group worked in a traditional laboratory context. The results showed that AR was more effective in fostering performance in the science laboratory compared to traditional laboratory instruction and prevented most of the mistakes. The AR group considered the guidance and feedback provided by AR to be beneficial for their learning. However, no apparent differences were found in tasks measuring students’ understanding of the content knowledge. Thus, an AR environment embedded with supportive tools could partly replace the teacher in science teaching laboratories by providing individual and timely guidance for the students.

COVID-19 Vaccines and Vaccination Report: The Nigeria Perspective

COVID-19 vaccine like other vaccines is developed to produce acquired immunity against the virus which causes coronavirus disease. The spread of the virus led to quick study by various science laboratories all over the world on the preventive role and the mortality rate reduction potential of covid vaccines. Celebration has been witnessed in different part of the world for the role the vaccines played against various cases arising from coronavirus infection. This review focused on the adverse event of coronavirus vaccines with perspective to the Nigerian populace. The type of vaccines approved for use by the WHO include; viral vector vaccines which has the Oxford-Astrazenca in its class, RNA vaccines, whole virus vaccines (having the Sinopharm, and Sinovac in it class), and protein subunit vaccines (with Novavax COVID-19 vaccines and (ESI, 2021), EpiVacCorona in it class). In Nigeria, about 8,439 mild adverse reactions have been reported by the National Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), following the administration of the first doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. The report showed that out of over a million persons who received the vaccine, 8,439 persons showed mild adverse effects, while 52 persons suffered moderate to severe adverse events on receiving the jab. Generally, the vaccine has proven to be effective in combating and limiting infection and spread of covid-19 among the citizenry.

THE EFECTIVENESS OF UTILIZATION OF THE SCIENCE LABORATORY IN INTEGRATED SCIENCE LEARNING AT MTS UNGGULAN AL QODIRI 1 JEMBER

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of usingscience laboratories and the factors that affected the effectiveness of using science laboratories in supporting learning at Mts Unggulan Al-Qodiri 1 Jember. This research was a qualitative research. Data collection techniques in this study used observation guidelines and interview guidelines. The data obtained were from the results of interviews with one of the science teachers as well as the head of the laboratory at MTs Unggulan 1 Alqodiri Jember. The results showed that the use of the science laboratory at MTs Unggulan Al-Qodiri 1 Jember can be said to be effective in supporting learning in schools. This can be seen from the effectiveness of the use of science laboratories facilitated with complete equipment, it can be said to be 90%. The tools contained in MTs Unggulan Al-Qodiri 1 Jember are very effective in utilizing the Science Laboratory in Integrated Science Learning. Based on this explanation, the function of the laboratory as a means of strengthening students' understanding, increasing learning motivation and learning outcomes through science experiment at MTs Unggulan Al-Qodiri 1 Jember has beeneffective.

Problem Analysis of Science Learning Based on Local Wisdom: Causes and Solutions

This study aims to analyze the problematic analysis of science learning based on local wisdom and the solution in terms of its solution in terms of several aspects, namely: curriculum, teachers, students, learning strategies, assessments, facilities and infrastructure. This type of research is descriptive qualitative. The research data was obtained through literature review and giving questionnaires to 65 respondents. The respondents came from 201 teachers who are alumni at one of the universities in Mataram City who are members of WAG IKA (WhatsApp Group Alumni Association). The questionnaire contains a list of six open-ended questions. The results of the study provide information that curriculum changes are expected to answer the needs of the times and consider local wisdom according to the characteristics of each region, these changes require mental changes from curriculum implementers. The quantity of teachers is sufficient but the quality of teachers still needs to be improved, especially in designing learning tools based on local wisdom. From the student factor, the role of parents as well as motivation and interest in learning is important to improve so that learning outcomes are as expected, and students also care about local wisdom in their neighborhood. For this reason, teachers need good learning strategies in planning local wisdom-based learning processes in the classroom by considering authentic assessments that are able to measure aspects of students' attitudes, knowledge, and skills in learning science. Facilities and infrastructure that can support science learning activities based on local wisdom include: library facilities, science laboratories, multimedia laboratories, and objects of local wisdom around students.

Magnetic to the Core – communicating paleomagnetism with hands-on activities

Paleomagnetism is a relatively unknown part of Earth sciences that is not well integrated into the school curriculum in the United Kingdom. Throughout recent years, there has been a decline in the number of Earth science students in the UK. In 2018 and 2019, we developed outreach activities and resources to introduce the scientifically-engaged general public to paleomagnetism and raise awareness of how geomagnetism affects society today, thus putting paleomagnetism, and Earth sciences, in the spotlight. We tested our ideas at local events that were visited mostly by families with small children, with tens to hundreds of participants. Our project culminated in the ‘Magnetic to the Core’ stand at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition in 2019, which is visited by members of the general public as well as students and teachers, scientists, policymakers and the media. At this event, we communicated the fundamentals of paleomagnetism through hands-on experiments and presented our recent research advances in a fun and family friendly way. To test the impact of our exhibit on knowledge of paleomagnetism and Earth’s magnetic field on visitors, we designed an interactive quiz and collected results from 382 participants over 8 days. The results show an increase in score of 19.1 % between those who had not yet visited the stand to those who had visited for more than 10 minutes. The results from school-age respondents alone show a larger increase in score of 28.1 % between those who had not yet visited and those who had spent more than 10 minutes at the stand. These findings demonstrate that this outreach event was successful in impacting visitors’ learning. We hope our Magnetic to the Core project can serve as an inspiration for other Earth science laboratories looking to engage a wide audience and measure the success and impact of their outreach activities.

Flexible IoT Gas Sensor Node for Automated Life Science Environments Using Stationary and Mobile Robots

In recent years the degree of automation in life science laboratories increased considerably by introducing stationary and mobile robots. This trend requires intensified considerations of the occupational safety for cooperating humans, since the robots operate with low volatile compounds that partially emit hazardous vapors, which especially do arise if accidents or leakages occur. For the fast detection of such or similar situations a modular IoT-sensor node was developed. The sensor node consists of four hardware layers, which can be configured individually regarding basic functionality and measured parameters for varying application focuses. In this paper the sensor node is equipped with two gas sensors (BME688, SGP30) for a continuous TVOC measurement. In investigations under controlled laboratory conditions the general sensors’ behavior regarding different VOCs and varying installation conditions are performed. In practical investigations the sensor node’s integration into simple laboratory applications using stationary and mobile robots is shown and examined. The investigation results show that the selected sensors are suitable for the early detection of solvent vapors in life science laboratories. The sensor response and thus the system’s applicability depends on the used compounds, the distance between sensor node and vapor source as well as the speed of the automation systems.

ATLaS: Assistant Software for Life Scientists to Use in Calculations of Buffer Solutions

Many solutions such as percentage, molar and buffer solutions are used in all experiments conducted in life science laboratories. Although the preparation of the solutions is not difficult, miscalculations that can be made during intensive laboratory work negatively affect the experimental results. In order for the experiments to work correctly, the solutions must be prepared completely correctly. In this project, a software, ATLaS (Assistant Toolkit for Laboratory Solutions), has been developed to eliminate solution errors arising from calculations. Python programming language was used in the development of ATLaS. Tkinter and Pandas libraries were used in the program. ATLaS contains five main modules (1) Percent Solutions, (2) Molar Solutions, (3) Acid-Base Solutions, (4) Buffer Solutions and (5) Unit Converter. Main modules have sub-functions within themselves. With PyInstaller, the software was converted into a stand-alone executable file. The source code of ATLaS is available at https://github.com/cugur1978/ATLaS.

Needs Analysis Blended Laboratory in The Context of the Adequacy of Supporting Facilities for Science Learning Using the Internet of Things and Augmented Reality

The blended laboratory model in this study refers to an integrated laboratory concept combining synchronous (real laboratory activities) using the Internet of things (IoT) and asynchronous learning with augmented reality (AR). The application of blended laboratory model in science learning teachers is still low in Indonesia due to the lack of ICT support for online learning. This preliminary study was conducted to analyze the need for the development of the blended laboratory model with IoT and AR involving 45 science teachers and 42 junior high school students as the respondents with stratified random sampling technique. The research method employed survey and focus group discussion. The results of the study showed that (1) 67% of teachers and 92% of students have never used AR, (2) 72% of teachers and 89% of students have never utilized IoT, (3) 65% of science laboratories in the junior high school do not have proper devices for AR application, (5) 76% of science laboratories in the junior high schools are not facilitated with proper equipment for the IoT application, (6) the respondents stated that the development of blended laboratory is very important (72%) and important (18%) to support IT-based learning, especially to deal with the conditions after the Covid-19 outbreak. ©2021 JSER. Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta