BTF — No School Left Without a Laboratory
Teacher, what is litmus paper and what does it do?
Does acid turn red on litmus paper? What about white? Does the base turn blue too?
Most schools in rural areas of our country have significant educational challenges. The biggest obstacle is the lack of laboratories in schools.
Laboratories in most schools are not properly equipped in line with technology and are instead used as warehouses. Laboratories not being equipped with the necessary materials, or only having broken, old materials is one of the biggest problems that science teachers face while teaching.
Even though science textbooks largely include experiments and activities, in our country science is still taught in classrooms.
At the end of this article, we will show a school that doesn’t just have science lessons consisting of learning from a book but instead creates events that use laboratories to develop students’ cognitive skills.
Do you think schools need a laboratory?
To find the answer to this question, let’s go to Köseli Elementary School and listen to this situation from our teacher Yaşar.
I am a teacher at Köseli Elementary and Middle School with a large population of 200 students. Every part of my school is filled with students who will save the world with their beautiful smiles.
The student's interest and curiosity in the classroom are always great, and their ability to learn brings light to their eyes and makes their smiles livelier.
The students came to life with science and lived with the hope of having a laboratory.
The most interesting class is usually science class since it includes topics from daily life and is based on visual learning and experimentation.
Science Course
One day, my students and I wanted to conduct an acid-base experiment. Since we didn’t have a laboratory, we did not have the necessary tools and equipment. To be able to conduct this experiment, we needed litmus paper. In Diyarbakır, I spent a week searching for litmus paper but couldn’t find it anywhere.
Instead, I tried to explain the experiment to the kids with what I had.
So, how did I do this?
First off, I took a blue and red pencil, with the blue representing the base and the red representing the acid. Without telling my students, I mixed the red pencil with the acid material, and secretly turning the red side I said, “Kids, look — the pencil is red. This is an acid.” Then I tried to explain the lesson by doing the experiment again in a fun and understandable way.
Due to physical and economical barriers which made it harder for us to efficiently teach our science course, I applied for the laboratory support created by BTF.
“All students deserve to be educated based on world standards.”
Thanks to the support we received from İnçoğlu family for Köseli Elementary School in Diyarbakır, we created a fully equipped science laboratory.
After Köseli Elementary School applied to BTF laboratory support and the necessary procedures were completed, a new and fully equipped laboratory was available for students to use in one month.
At BTF we believe that with the laboratory we have established, our students
● Will learn and understand materials used during labs.
● Will increase their learning and learn how to fix their mistakes.
● Will learn information in more concrete ways and will learn how to look at the natural phenomenon from a scientific point of view.
Most Importantly
● Will use their sense of curiosity inherent in human beings to understand the natural world and will gain the experience of simply producing information.
We, as the BTF family with support from the İnçoğlu family, listened to teacher Yaşar and came together to establish a science laboratory for our students in Diyarbakır.
Our teacher Yaşar and the Köseli Elementary School in Diyarbakır are one of the hundreds of schools that don’t have laboratories and are left to teach science lessons in classrooms.
A society reaching a bright future depends on the environment in which the children grow up. Time flies by, and those little kids become the adults of the future. For our futures to be stable, our children need to have solid education today.
The future depends on children whose faces shine like the sun.
Let’s love all children. They are our future. Let’s protect our future.
At BTF our mission is to ensure equal educational opportunities. We would love to express our gratitude to teacher Yaşar and the İnçoğlu family who helped when the time came.
“Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world.”
Bridge to Turkey Fund (BTF) ABD central, run by volunteers, nonprofit, 501 © (3) is a charity. The donations made to BTF are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by the IRS. BTF’s tax identification number is 58–678580.
With our love and respect…
