Collaboration of Three Campuses Brings Forth STEM Trails in Aceh
Banda Aceh (7/7/2025)—An innovative educational training program under the name STEM Trails with Socio-Scientific Issues was successfully held in Banda Aceh on Monday, July 7, 2025. This event was born from a collaboration between Universitas Syiah Kuala (USK), Universitas Negeri Semarang (UNNES), Universitas Islam Internasional Indonesia (UIII), and Math Trails Lab as part of the Indonesian Collaborative Research (Riset Kolaborasi Indonesia) program.
This training program, attended by elementary, middle, and high school teachers from various regions of Aceh, aims to provide educators with in-depth STEM teaching skills. Participants were supplied with 32 hours’ worth of materials, discussions, and hands-on implementation in their respective schools—all free of charge.
Three speakers were invited to facilitate this training session: Prof. Mailizar (USK) on STEM Learning, Dr. Adi Nur Cahyono (UNNES) on the concept of Math Trails, and Dr. Destina Wahyu Winarti (UIII) on integrating socio-scientific issues into learning.
Participants weren’t just passive recipients in this training, as they were also assigned to create and implement Math Trails in schools, which would then be documented into MathCityMap, a GPS-based educational application. Through this approach, mathematics is no longer a mere number-centered concept, but also a relevant, real-world experience.
This event is an endeavor to strengthen national-level synergy in developing a relevant and engaging educational framework that encourages critical thinking through deep learning. Banda Aceh serves as the first point in a series of national trainings, which will be continued in Semarang and Depok on later dates.
Organizing parties hope that this event can become a catalyst for educational transformation in Aceh as well as Indonesia. This cross-sector collaboration is expected to continue through mentoring, further research, and development of STEM-based learning models that can adapt to the ebbs and flows of time.