LANTERN ― 1st Intervention

LANTERN is CIMSA UGM’s new community development with the aim of educating and engaging junior high school students to do research. This activity consists of a bonding and an intervention agendas which were held on February 26 and 29, 2022 via Zoom Meeting. Nevertheless, LANTERN will have more interventions ahead as a community development to further equip students in SMPN 5 Yogyakarta with research knowledge and ignite their enthusiasm for research.

LANTERN conducted a bonding session with the students of SMPN 5 Yogyakarta, our target community for LANTERN. The bonding consisted of playing games and a get-together between the students and SCORE CIMSA UGM members. On our next agenda, CIMSA UGM cooperated with SAGASITAS as our external partner. In the 1st intervention, the students were equipped with basic knowledge about research by SAGASITAS followed by a simple experiment. Some tips and tricks in doing research were also delivered by SAGASITAS to motivate the students who are interested in doing research, especially for those who had trouble initiating one. The experiment itself was about testing the quality of water from various sources around students.

LANTERN OCs provided experiment kits for the students which consisted of two bottles of water from Kali Code and Madukismo Sugar Factory, two empty bottles to be filled with their own water at home, and four water test strips. Then, students were divided into five breakout rooms for the experiment session. They were led by two facilitators each in doing the experiment. In addition to the experiment, each group of students was given two case studies, coming from real cases of water contamination in history, to be discussed with their facilitators. We hope that from the experiment and case studies, the students could be more interested in doing research. This intervention ended with an awarding session for the best presenters from each group as well as a documentation session.

Through LANTERN, students of SMPN 5 Yogyakarta were able to gain basic research knowledge that will be useful to improve their analysis skills. Additionally, they were able to practice how to communicate, cooperate, and be active. SCORE CIMSA UGM hopes that LANTERN can improve enthusiasm in research of junior high school students through a sustainable community development project. This activity will not only enhance students’ interest about research but also their skills to do research. Ultimately, we hope that they can also realize that research is truly fun.