Magnets and electric: Improving elementary students’ understanding on the concept of energy and force

Abstract

COVID-19 has brought a wide impact on the world including education. It comes with the difficulties of conducting the teaching-learning process and achieving the students’ comprehension and understanding of the subjects, especially science. It is worsened by the thematic learning model, where students are required to understand more than one learning concept in one learning sub-theme. The offline teaching, which is scheduled in the first semester of the 2021/2022 academic year is a momentum to reshape the thinking concept of elementary school students. One of the concerns is physics. Physics is very important in the development of student knowledge, because of its continuous application in everyday life. In addition, the use of natural science in secondary schools is wide. Another important point is that students have less ability to understand new knowledge. Therefore, practice is needed to support the learning of theories. Considering this problem, the team of community service of Engineering Faculty Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang used magnetic and electric kits to explain the concept of energy and force to students. These topics are difficult for students, and they need to learn them with direct practice. Learning using the physics kits, magnet and electric, made students can understand better the basic concepts of magnetism and electricity. Moreover, students can practice their motoric skills using the kits. Students can also develop their creativity and innovation by varying the experiments with the kits. Lots of practice with magnets and electric kits helped teachers to evaluate students’ ability and absorption of the materials. With this learning media, the learning provided by the teacher can be more interesting and fun for students. Therefore, students can improve their knowledge and skills in understanding concepts and their knowledge of physics.