DOST’s NuLab caps Bohol visit,

Month-long visit set next year

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol, May 5, (PIA) –After a whirlwind visit to Bohol last week, the mobile science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEM) learning facility for senior high schools in the STEAM strand, will be back in Bohol for a month next year.

This is according to Department of Science and Technology Bohol Provincial Science and Technology Center Director Vina Antopina, last week.

The DOST through its Science Education Institute sent to Bohol its NuLab, a mobile science and technology learning facility and laboratory equipped with a huge interactive board as the teacher’s main board, individual monitor for students, laboratory-grade equipment, wireless sensors, internet connection and carries with it modern learning modules designed to help students discover their potentials in the various STEM fields and encourage them to take courses where they are most inclined to succeed and excel.

In Bohol last April 24-28, the NuLab, also brought in scientists from the country’s Balik Scientist Program, subject matter experts and former DOST scholars in nanotechnology, aerospace engineering, nuclear science, earthquake risk analysis, science media literacy, programming, oceanography, robotics, entomology, environmental science and still in so many interesting fields, to engage students into science and related subjects.

In its first stop at the Ubay National Science High School, April 24, STEM strand senior high school students took the chance to get a glimpse of applied chemistry inside the NuLab bus, as a chemist scientist conducts interactive experiments that opened students and teachers minds into the immensity of chemistry and its applied uses in the world.

In fact, because of her experience inside the NuLab, a Grade 11 STEM student here finds a new love in geology, which is quite off from her initial course choice in political science.

In the Nulab’s second pit stop in Pres. Carlos P. Garcia Technical Vocational School of Fisheries and Arts in Bien Unido, a former DOST scholar and now science teacher aired his appreciation at DOST’s effort to ease student’s perception against science and math.

By April 26, the NuLab rolled to another of its pit stops: in Manga National High School, where from topics in chemistry and microbiology, the scientist teacher expert engaged student into the fun and exciting world of Mathematics, drawing using excel and the mathematics behind computer graphics.

In the afternoon, the NuLab team unrolled its tarps in Dr. Cecilio Putong National High School where STEM senior high students got immersed in the world of environmental science with Balik Scientist and Central Visayan Institute Jagna teacher scientist Dr. Janneli Lea Soria, an expert in Coastal Geology, testing and analyzing water quality properties of water samples collected throughout the City.

By April 27, the NuLab team rolled to another stop: at the Tagbilaran City Science High School where students had their first peek at nuclear science and its significant industrial uses other than developing nuclear weapons.

Dr. Vallerie Samson, a scientist expert from DOST-Philippine Nuclear Research Institute scoured the applications of nuclear science to health, food, and safety.

In the afternoon, Dr. Soria went back on board to talk about environmental science and marine biology, which also happens to be her field of expertise, talked about Bohol’s marine environment and the effects of population in the marine ecosystem.

As the NuLab Stem in Motion posted updates in their facebook page, Bohol school authorities openly asked the DOT to let the NuLab do quick stops in schools, but the team, which also campaigned to encourage students to apply to the DOST-SEI Undergraduate Scholarships, the agency’s flagship program, had its schedules pegged.

With the mobile learning environment’s visit to Bohol apparently piquing students’ interest in the sciences, schools have seen what would take them weeks to usher in the courses which STEM can help them prepare, it would take the NuLan one session.

With this and the popular demand to have STEM in Motion go back, the DOST has set the revisit next year,a nd it is going to be for a month, Antopina added. (PIA-7/Bohol)

WITH A PROMISE TO RETURN. The DOS SEI NuLab STEM in Motion mobile laboratory capped its 4-day visit to Bohol by stirring the minds and imagination of STEM Strand students in 5 schools with half day-sessions. DOST however said the mobile learning facility will be back next year and stays here for a month enough for senior high school students to take a peek into a course they can pick on and take in college. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)