The Chemistry Student Association of Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences UNY held a National Chemistry Fair on Saturday, 13th March 2021. This seminar is part of a series of 2021 National Chemistry Fair (NaCF) which is held annually. The seminar with the theme "Chemistry Implementation Strategy and Chemistry Education in the New Normal Era as An Attempt of Human Resources Development in order to Head Towards a Golden Indonesia in 2045" was held online considering the Covid-19 pandemic. The seminar was attended by approximately 450 participants from among students, university students, teachers and the general public.
The speakers for the seminar were Prof. Dr. Ni Nyoman Tri Puspaningsih, M.Sc., Vice Rector for Research, Innovation, and Community Service at Airlangga University with the presented topic "Increasing Productivity to Build Competitive Human Resources in the New Normal Era". She is also active as the Covid-19 Research Product Coordinator at Airlangga University. And the other speaker was presented by Dr. Antuni Wiyarsi, S.Pd.Si., M.Sc., from the Department of Chemistry Education, UNY, with the presented topic "The Implementation of Chemistry and Chemistry Education in Efforts to Develop the Quality of Human Resources in the New Normal Era".
In her presentation, Prof. Ni Nyoman Tri Puspaningsih explained that Indonesia is a mega-diverse country which is abundant with its natural resources. So, learning from the Covid-19 outbreak, Indonesian people are expected to be able to rise up and cooperate to make innovative, creative, and excellent works towards national independence.
She added, "This opportunity is supported by the Ministry of Research and Technology / National Agency for Research and Technology through innovative research funding that has produced innovative works of the nation's children in overcoming the Sars-Cov2 virus in Indonesia. Among them are the acceleration and development of the red and white vaccine, the acceleration of conducting genome surveillance, medicinal products, immunomodulators, and various Covid-19 rapid detection tools. These products are the result of chemistry study.
As for Dr. Antuni Wiyarsi, she explained that the rapid development of chemistry and chemistry education has contributed to the productivity of national development which can be implemented for the successful new normal era. This resulted in the making of hand sanitizers and soap from natural ingredients, antibacterial coatings mask, the use of local ingredients for the manufacture of immune-boosting supplements, and precise computational modeling for the coronavirus receptor.
In addition, Dr. Antuni stated that the role of chemistry education is to make chemistry learning more meaningful with an interesting learning context in SSI Based Instruction. One example of the learning context in question is vaccination. (Tito / Witono; translated by Sausan)
