Muhammad Ihsan Bin Rommel MIC190027

GIG 1005 SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT

REFLECTIVE ESSAY

Muhammad Ihsan Bin Rommel                                                                         Date: 2 May 2020

          To be honest, I didn’t know very much about this course at first and wasn’t really interested. But, after our first briefing on the 5th of December together with Year 2 students, I realized that this course is really interesting and unique in its own way in that we have to go out and engage with high school students or more specifically, teach them about something that is related to our course which will be useful for them and for our own selves also. After the briefing, Year 1 students were divided into two groups and each group had their respective modules to be taught or to be presented at the high schools that each group had been designated. I was in the Year 1 Group 2 students.

         Our very first workshop was held on 13th March which was on a Friday. Upon arriving, I saw varieties of foods and drinks which I thought will be used for our workshop that day but actually, the stuffs were meant for us to feast upon so that we would stay focused during the workshop. Thank you Dr Puah for that. Next, we started off with the microbe module. First, we assembled a simple foldscope in pairs. The foldscope is a cheaper apparatus compared to a light microscope and it is also able to view microbes in a convenient manner through the slides that contained several types of microbes prepared by Dr Puah. The second activity was to blow up several kinds of balloons to recreate certain shapes of microbes such as staphylococci, bacillus, etc., by putting together that blown-up balloons with tapes. Both of these activities can be useful to high school students in which they will learn that we shared this world together with the microbes and if we learn more about them, new things can be discovered such as medicines in the future. The next activity involved sneezing to see how far the aerosol of a sneeze can travel from a person through the air. Coloured-water sprayed from a spray bottle is used for sneezing while white papers were used to see how far the aerosol can actually travel. Then, we used a measuring tape to measure the distance travelled. Next, we sprayed the coloured-water again but this time, the bottle was covered with tissues. We found out that when the bottle was covered with tissues, the aerosol can still pass through the tissues but only a bit and the distance is greatly lessened. So, we learned that it is important to cover our mouth when we are sneezing so that we can reduce the spread of microorganisms. Our last activity for that day was to see how microbes spread through handshakes. Dr Puah put some powder that can only be seen with UV light on some of us and we shook hands afterwards. We could still see the microbes or the powder on our hands although it has been transmitted to many people through hand shakes and found out that it is important to wash our hands after interacting with people. We also came to find out that normal soaps did the cleaning work better than hand sanitizers. It was truly fun and all of us were looking forward to present our respective modules to our group’s designated high schools later.

          Several days later, Malaysia started to begin the lockdown under the Movement Control Order (MCO) and unfortunately, this brought an end to our module. We had no choice but to obey since the government ordered the citizens (including us) to avoid mass gathering and to stay put to control the outbreak of the COVID-19 which had been declared as a pandemic. Since nothing can be done, Dr Puah asked us to prepare a video, infographic posters and online questionnaire as an alternative delivery instead. Then, the three major tasks were distributed equally among us students from Year 1 Group 2. I was in the making- video team. The video was prepared to teach everyone about the more detailed-way of handwashing since handwashing is also one of the effective ways in the battle against COVID-19. For the online questionnaire, it was merely to find out regarding the principle and attitude of biomedical students about proper hygiene. Lastly, the infographic posters were meant to be given or uploaded unto our designated high schools’ blog so that we could still provide them with knowledge even far from them.

          Finally, I would like to thank Dr Puah, the lecturer, for guiding us through this course and provided us with many knowledges regarding our modules although we never had the chance to conduct this course at the selected high schools. I hoped that through our efforts in making the video, infographic posters and the online questionnaire, we are able to create an awareness among the school community and also within ourselves. The modules given to us can also be useful in combating against the COVID-19 since the activities in the modules had given us insights on how effective can the social distancing, wearing masks and washing hands properly be to reduce the spread of the virus. Last but not least, I would also like to thank all of my group mates which are really hardworking in doing all the tasks given in this course.