Dr. Riaz-ul Haque, Ph.D., Founder Science Skills Center

03/04/2020

Learning science through books and lectures is way too confusing sapping ones self confidence. The best way is to learn science via projects using the actual instruments and procedures scientists use to do day to day science. You thus get to feel the logic of science and that makes it fun to learn and grow with. See www.sinl.org. Here we start with Microbiology and then bring in the rest of science making it whole and fun to search and learn.

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02/07/2017

The only and the best way to learn science is to learn it with science instruments while doing actual science projects. These projects do not have to be earth shaking kind, just the kind which can show you how the science is actually done. Even a simple project like analyzing a food product can end up exposing you to a lot of learning. Just try doing it. For instance, try analyzing a small piece of ground meet. You can study it micro-biologically, you can study it physically or you can study its composition in terms of its protein, carbohydrate and nuclear contents. See how many procedures, protocols and instruments you will end up learning and using. Plus on top of all this, you have to be meticulous. No sloppiness and keep good reproducing notes which can be verified and followed so others can duplicate and confirm or refute your findings. Science will make a thinker out of you. Also you do not need to purchase expensive equipment. Just ask around and if you come across any used or discarded ones, learn to fix and use them. This is a lost art in itself. Who knows you may end up an instrument repair and refurbishing person. Lord knows we have shortage of such persons.

02/07/2017

The only and the best way to learn science is to learn it with science instruments while doing actual science projects. These projects do not have to be earth shaking kind, just the kind which can show you how the science is actually done. Even a simple project like analyzing a food product can end up exposing you to a lot of learning. Just try doing it. For instance, try analyzing a small piece of ground meet. You can study it micro-biologically,you can study it physically or you can study its composition in terms of its protein, carbohydrate and nuclear contents. .

12/18/2016

Violence is an outcome of frustration! Instead of just working on guns, we need to work on reducing frustration. See below:

Our children are very intelligent but we do not treat them that way which is a mistake.

As an educator, specially a science educator, I realized how quickly our children get used to I-phones, tablets and other such devices, and they learn to use them without anyone teaching them. That made me think what if we teach science to our students not via books or lectures, which add to frustration, but via actual science instruments such as microscopes, pH meters, conductivity meters, spectrophotometers, sterilizers and centrifuges etc. Would that attract them to science?

I thus established a Science Skills Center where we actually teach science that way. Let me invite you to come visit us at a mutually convenient time and bring your children with you to see their interest and involvement on the spot. You can contact me at [email protected].

Frustrated souls just cannot be happy and to reduce their frustration, they will not hesitate to take their frustrations out on any body who just happens to be around. Let us collaborate to try this remedy.

02/14/2016

Even kids from the poor families need to know science. Here is their chance:

To know science, you must do science like you do music, art and sports, specially sports as most everyone is sending poor kids to sports not to wholesome education. Here is their opportunity for knowing science in a hands-on way.

Science Skills Center is offering after school and Saturday workshops, Mondays through Fridays from 3.30 P.M to 6.00 P.M and Saturdays from 12.00 Noon to 3.00 P.M. These are hands-on workshops where science is taught not with books but with actual instruments like microscopes and pH meters etc.

Admission is $15.00 per session. One adult admitted free with each child or a group of children. Group tours are also available at $10.00 per child for a group of ten. For more information and registration, send e-mail to: [email protected] or call 312-404-5353.

12/13/2015

This site has 154 LIKES but what's the use.

You all like it but did not do anything about it. So the problem does not just stay around but gets worse day by day causing people to avoid it more and more instead of dealing with it.

But then if you dealt with it, there will be nothing to complain about and point fingers at saying "look how bad the things are and no one is doing anything about them". If nothing else the complaints at least will let you participate in the problem if not in its solution. So, please keep complaining may be someday those complaints will bear fruit!

You may also DONATE to our mutual cause here: htp://www.gofundme.com/d15t3c.

11/25/2015

Additional thoughts on the issue of science not just in Muslim countries but globally:

In my opinion the only way we can make science exciting is if we teach it with instruments not books or lectures. We also have to stay away from lesson vendors because they take the incentive out of teachers by offering them ready made lessons which do not apply to any particular situation that a teacher may be facing.
Also people are under the impression that instruments would be expensive and thus beyond their budget. Not so, provided we begin with what integuments are actually needed and you will be surprised that they are not that many. I am going to have the Science skills Center put together a basic instrument package for teaching hands-on science. This, however. will also require that teachers be trained to teach with instruments in a hands-on way.

Additionally, when we send our students to learn abroad, we must ensure that what they will be learning there will apply to their country's needs, meaning that the foreign institution must custom tailor the training.

11/19/2015

Regarding problems of science education not just in the Muslim countries but globally:

It is the way we teach science via books which is rather meaningless to most students who then resort to memorization and regurgitation on examinations.

It is a human problem not limited to Muslim countries alone; it is happening in the USA and other advanced countries also.

Citing percent of GDP as investment to science is also misleading. It all boils down to how prepared the students are in terms of tools of science which are the instruments, how they are used and for what purpose and to get what sort of information.

Coming from Pakistan and studying and working as an academician in the USA, I have first hand information of both countries regarding the way of their teaching science and to what results.

Consequently to remedy this situation, I established the Science Skills Center where all teaching and training in science is done via science instruments not books alone and the students, mostly interns learn rather quickly and become problem solvers. .

At this Center it is common for me to see students with a B.Sc degree in Biology who have never used or understood the use of a light microscope let alone a dark field, phase contrast, or a fluorescent microscope. Some of them have heard the names but never used one.

Unless this situation is rectified both locally here in the USA and also in the Muslim countries, science will keep on moving at a crippling pace.

This situation is also going to get worse as we are now promoting e-learning for science which has to be hands-on
not mere demonstration via videos.

Thinking comes from doing and science is all based on doing!

Hope some of the GDP could be diverted to lower grades so the students come prepared to do science when they get into higher education and are required or are self motivated to do research. .

10/22/2015

Attention Chicago: The Science Skills Center will be offering Saturday Science workshops from 12.00 noon to 3.00 P.M. We are the only Center which teaches science with instruments not books. You thus learn faster with retention and use what you learn to become a meaningful scientist or a science savvy person.

For registration and schedule of workshops send e-mail to [email protected]

05/31/2015

All nations are committed to bring science and science education to their countries but find it difficult because science as it is currently practiced and taught around the world is overly compartmentalized divided into subjects and also delivered to the students mostly as lectures and less as hands-on labs where students can learn and understand the underlying concepts and acquire the needed skills. Additionally, where science is taught in a hands-on fashion, the skills and concepts imparted are limited to the science subject being taught. Yet science as practice is not so compartmentalized as more and more interdisciplinary collaborations are encouraged where the various partners in the collaboration are required to know beyond their subject. This requires a merging or integration of different science subjects so that all the collaborative participants can communicate and interact with each other.

This type of merging of different science subjects seemed difficult but a serendipitous circumstance in 1967 when science was being taught in an extemporaneous fashion starting with Microbiology to a group of high school and college drop outs and unemployed persons as a way to remove their fear of science, the needed merging sort of automatically happened. These students not only showed good grasp of Microbiology within a short time, they also got to know and understand a large part of chemistry, biochemistry, histology and physiology also

Actually what was happening was that, inadvertently the extemporaneous way of teaching science was taking out many of the duplication and redundancies which were common to many science subjects and reducing the remaining common concepts and skills of science to mere 150 items; see http://www.iibbt.com/storyhowscience.htm.

As I mentioned earlier, this was happening around 1967 but over the years the list has grown now standing at 250 items but still not that large that a beginning student cannot learn, grasp and manage doing science by it.

The Science Skills Center which came out of these circumstantial happenings teaches science via these 250 concepts and skills. This is an opportunity that countries of the world, especially the developing countries of the world, can take advantage of and succeed in bringing science and science education to their countries.

The current practice of sending their young people to the universities in the advanced countries has not worked as well as expected because there the students get exposed to the subject based science and also more to research side of science and not to the teaching side of science with the consequence that when such trained persons return to their home country, they proceed to set up research facilities while the country needs teaching type of facilities.

This discrepancy can be avoided by having your trainees learn at the Science Skills Center where internships and integrative learning opportunities are available see: http://www.scienceskillscenter.org/gpage10.html