NuLab, the recently launched mobile science learning facility of the Department of Science and Technology-Science Education Institute, will soon go around the country.
The project, which gives senior high school students a glimpse of the emerging science careers, kicked off last July 17 as part of the 2019 National Science and Technology Week festivities at the World Trade Center in Pasay City.
This is DOST-SEI’s second science bus for Filipino learners, following the success of the Science Explorer, which has served over 30,000 elementary and high school students in more than 100 municipalities around the country since 2010.
DOST-SEI Director Josette Biyo expressed hope that nuLab would be as successful as the Science Explorer in reaching out to target beneficiaries. The former is primarily intended for senior high school students while the latter mostly caters to younger students.
NuLab has a huge interactive board, individual monitor for students, laboratory-grade equipment, wireless sensors and more. It can accommodate 24 students in one session and hold two sessions per day.
Aside from offering a modern learning environment that can help pique students’ interest in the sciences, the advanced STEM modules in nuLab feature topics such as nanotechnology, aerospace engineering, robotics, nuclear science, earthquake risk analysis, oceanography, science journalism, entomology, science filmmaking and environmental science, among others.
The modules are specially designed to help students discover their potentials in the various STEM fields and to encourage them to take tertiary courses where they are most inclined to succeed and excel.
Students at the nuLab are also encouraged to apply for the DOST-SEI Undergraduate Scholarships, the agency’s flagship program.
For its first run, nuLab conducted sessions throughout the NSTW. Astrophysicist Dr. Rogel Mari Sese, marine biologist Dr. Aletta Yñiguez, entomologist Dr. Aimee Dupo, Engr. Myra Ruth Poblete and other top young scientists, engineers, and science communicators facilitated modules they have developed with curriculum experts to senior high school students from various schools in Metro Manila.
NuLab will visit the province of Ilocos Norte from September 17 to 19 and will cross the sea for the first time to serve students in Iloilo from October 21 to 24. It will close out the year by inspiring students from Bontoc, Mt. Province from November 18 to 22.
