Explaining an earthquake to a class of university students may be like a walk in the park for professors with years of pedantic experience, but that might not be the case should they attempt to explain natural phenomenon in a simple way to elementary school students.On Saturday, University of Indonesia (UI), in cooperation with the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Jakarta, held a so-named Kinder Uni program for 250 elementary school students, mostly fourth and six graders from schools across Greater Jakarta at the UI campus in Depok.
The program, which will be held on a weekly basis for a month, is aimed at training UI’s professors to acquire new skills to translate complicated scientific concepts into simple and comprehensible explanations for elementary school students.
Within the program, professors will present various subjects, including ‘“Why do earthquakes happen?” “What is money and what is it for?” “What are the future challenges for the human race?” “Why do people need to eat and drink,” and “What are water catchment areas?”
The program hopes to emulate the success of a similar program that has been held at Tubingen University in Germany since 2002, where university professors should be able to explain science in simple way, like why does 1+1 equal 2 and why do people laugh when hearing jokes.
Among UI’s lecturers who will take part in the program are Lepi Tamidi from the faculty of economics, Asmarinah from the medicine faculty, Hengky Ashadi from the faculty of engineering, Emi Budianto from the faculty of science and math and UI rector Gumilar Rusliwa Somantri from the faculty of political science.
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