By: Dr. Mohd Noor Hisham Mohd Nadzir, Dr. Bokhary Zainal and Sarah Nabilah Hamdan
SERDANG – In overcoming the COVID-19 challenges and making efforts to stay in touch with students, the Faculty of Science Students’ Association (FaSSA), Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), has successfully conducted the FaSSA Colosseum online through the Quizizz platform and streamed it live on YouTube.
The online quiz competition was divided into three sessions held on December 19 and 26, 2020 and January 2, 2021, and covered questions from the four main science branches, namely Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics.
The intense competition between 242 participants could be seen in the first round of the FaSSA Colosseum qualifying round, which was conducted in groups of four people.
Three groups that collected the highest marks from the 20 groups in the second and third sessions won the grand prize worth RM100 which was sponsored by the Faculty of Science.
Programme Director, Syed Alif Imran, said the programme name was inspired by the famous building where the Romans watched great matches between swordsmen.
"Participants from different departments worked together to achieve their goals. I believe this is a healthy competition we wanted," he said that in his closing ceremony speech.
He added that healthy competition and collaboration in STEM would result in students with positive learning and better decision-making skills.
Programme advisers, Dr. Mohd Noor Hisham Mohd Nadzir and Dr. Bokhary Zainal, were glad that the programme had received encouraging response from the live streaming viewers with 4,000 views at the FaSSA Youtube Studio channel.
"When we see students share their views actively in the comments section during the panel discussions, the transfer of information through technology has taken place, and this indirectly is a demonstration of STEM learning," he said.
Both of them hoped that the FaSSA Colosseum could be held again in the future with participation from the Faculty of Science and other UPM students, as the programme had received great feedback from everyone. - UPM
