From challenge to opportunity: Promoting active health behavior during COVID-19 through nanochemistry education
Leading team
Summary
Some experts argue that should all the citizens of Israel be vigilant about wearing masks continuously for a period of two to four weeks, the Reproductive number (R) would go down dramatically. However, many people tend to ignore this recommendation, as reflected by the high number of fines that were given in Israel. In this proposal, we suggest that combining public health knowledge with educational one can possibly allow to overcome this challenge. We propose to engage adolescents specially designed nanochemistry education unit that will impact students’ knowledge, perception, and ultimately behavior with regard to their habit of wearing masks. This approach, if found successful, can be further disseminated, reach a wide audience, and decrease the spread of COVID-19 in Israel, and even world-wide. A teaching unit was developed as part of a project aimed at answering many questions such as What is the corona virus? What is the coefficient of infection and how does it change? Can masks really prevent infection? This is done by understanding scientific concepts related to the pandemic, which are presented daily by the media, as well as learning the chemistry behind the masks (e.g., functional groups, molecular relationships, and hydrophobicity / hydrophilicity). This unit addresses the cognitive, emotional, and social aspects of the subject. At the end of the unit, the students engage in various educational activities to assimilate the knowledge they have acquired through social action.
We study the influence of the teaching unit on students’ knowledge, attitudes towards wearing protecting masks, and actual behavior with regards to mask wearing in closed spaces.
The research and development is supported by Miel de Botton.