Preface

Abstract

The 1st South East Asia Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (SEA-STEM) 2020 R Oktavia1 E Yusibani1 Mailizar1 Suhartono1 Rahmi1 Elizar1 Irwandi1 E Etkina2 G Planinsic3 N Mansour4 N Idris5 C O’Donnell6 K Kagawa7 R Sheffield8 V M Mistades9 O Kaosaiyaporn10 Editorial Team of the 1st SEA-STEM’s Publication 1 Universitas Syiah Kuala, Banda Aceh, Indonesia 2 Graduate School of Education, Rutgers University, USA 3 The University of Ljubljana, Slovenia 4 The University of Exeter, UK 5 The National STEM Movement, Malaysia 6 Smithsonian Science Education Center, USA 7 Fukui University, Japan 8 Curtin University, Australia 9 De La Salle University, Philippines 10 Prince of Sonkla University, Thailand Email: [email protected] The 1st South East Asia Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics International Conference (SEA-STEM) 2020 is held by the STEM Research Center Universitas Syiah Kuala located in Banda Aceh, Aceh, Indonesia on October 20-22, 2020. With the theme “Empowering Science and Transforming Communities through STEM Education,” SEA-STEM 2020 aims to be a scientific meeting among researchers and educators in STEM fields. In conjunction with the Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand Growth Triangle University Network (IMT-GT UNINET) STEM meeting, SEA-STEM 2020 is also intended to initiate a STEM movement in South East Asia region. The conference was planned to be a part of a one week STEM carnivals where we expected all participants to meet in Universitas Syiah Kuala’s campus. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we should replace the physical conference with the virtual one. The three-day conference has been successfully concluded with 9 keynote speakers and 36 parallel sessions involving 234 presentations. The first keynote session was held on the first day of the conference (October 20, 2021) with three keynote speakers including Prof. Dato’ Noraini Idris (Chair of National STEM Movement Malaysia), Prof. Tom Lowrie (Director of Early Learning STEM Australia), and Assoc. Prof. Rachel Sheffield (Curtin University, Australia) delivered their keynote talks for 40 minutes. On the second day, 50-minute keynote speeches were delivered by Dr. Carol O’Donnell (Director of Smithsonian Science Education Center, USA), Prof. Kiichiro Kagawa (Fukui University, Japan), Dr. Indrawati, M.Pd (Director of SEAMEO Qitep in Science, Indonesia) and Prof. Nasser Mansour (Exeter University, UK and Egypt). On the last day, our USG Partner of the USAID PEER Project Dist. Prof. Eugenia Etkina (the ISLE Inventor-Graduate School of Education, Rutgers University, USA) and her research partner Prof. Gorazd Planinsic (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia), in one-hour talks, shared their long-time efforts in developing the Investigative Science Learning Environment (ISLE) approach for instructions and assessments in teaching physics. For keynote sessions we provided a 500-person virtual meeting room and based on the attendance records, about 250-350 participants attended the keynote sessions. On the other hand, for each parallel session, we organized six 100-person virtual meeting rooms that were assigned for parallel talks based on the topics of presentations. In each parallel session meeting room, 4-8 speakers delivered their presentation including the Q&A session in 15 minutes per presenter. Presenters of the conferences are researchers and educators in STEM fields who came from several countries including Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippine, Thailand, China, Japan, Hungary, Nigeria, Macedonia, Germany, UK, Egypt, Australia, Slovenia, and the USA. The virtual conference majorly depended on the reliability of the internet connection and the video conferencing and webinars platform. We hired a third party technical team that has successfully handled the technical aspects of the keynote and parallel sessions. We experienced some technical glitches during the opening ceremony and keynote talks on the first day, such as the voice of the keynote speakers and the national anthem cannot be heard, but the technical team learn from this experience and the keynote and parallel sessions on the next days were successfully held without glitches. We received 257 paper submissions and after a careful review process, 165 of the manuscripts are published in this proceedings. The published papers are divided into 7 tracks including Physics & Physics Education, Mathematics, Mathematics Education, Biology & Biology Education, Chemistry & Chemistry Education, Technology and Engineering, and STEM Education. We hope that the papers will provide new thoughts, ideas, and inspiration for us to improve STEM education in Indonesia as well as in South East Asia. We learned from this experience that even though the virtual conference was a success, a physical conference would provide more interactive engagements among the presenters and participants. However, we realize that the virtual conference enable us to invite that many experts from all around the world to discuss about STEM and STEM education. This might not be possible if we hold a physical conference. Feedback from participants was mostly positive and a community of scholars and educators who work in STEM research and education consisting of former participants of the conference has been established. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the NAS and USAID and Institute of Research and Community Service (LPPM) Universitas Syiah Kuala, which provided the financial support for SEA-STEM 2020. We also would like to extend our gratitude to all reviewers for their benevolent assistance in reviewing the manuscripts and to all keynote speakers, participants, and presenters of SEA-STEM 2020 for their great contributions to the conference. We hope the development of STEM and STEM education in the South East Asia region will thrive that will benefit not only the countries in the region, but also the world in general. International STEM Committee, Steering Committee, Organizing Committee, Scientific Committee & Reviewers, Schedule of The 1st South East Asia Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics International Conference (SEA-STEM) 2020, and these titles are available in this pdf