*Author: Hafsah Intifadhoh Rabbaniyah
The First Seri of Open Lecture was held as a collaboration between the Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta (UMS) and the Faculty of Built Environment and Surveying, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) on Tuesday, June 16, 2020. Open Lecture started at 09.00 – 11.30 WIB and was guided by two lecturers who act as moderators as well as disscussants, namely Prof. Ismail Said from the Department of Landscape Architecture, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia and Dr. Wisnu Setiawan from the Department of Architecture, Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta. Taking the theme of Children’s Environment, the first Open Lecture presented two speakers, who were PhD candidates in UTM, virtually through the Zoom platform.
The first presentation was delivered by Sarah Alia Norazlan with a research theme on ‘Literacy of Children on Ecosystems in Rural Environments and Natural Learning’. Johor, which has the third highest population of children in Malaysia, was the location of the research that Sarah raised with the aim to investigatre the ecological literacy of children on ecosystems in the rural village environment and its effect on their competences toward natural learning. The research concluded that: (1) the context of everyday landscape become an extension for children to develop their literacy on ecosystem and support their action, such as physically, cognitively and socially; (2) the children perceives the everyday landscape as an open-ended laboratory because there are no boundaries, as well as a place for them to master a certain sense of control to discover their own knowledge; (3) children makes contact with the natural environment which provide them a venue for exploration, discovery and an understanding of nature, which leads to ecological literacy; (4) everyday landscape elucidates the importance of ideational resources for the initiation of learning activities that leading to ecological literacy.
The second session with the theme of the research “Affordances of Fishing Village and Bajau Ubian Children Sensibility towards Coastal Environment” was presented by Janatun Naim Yusof. The research took place in Sabah as the highest child population in western Malaysia. The research aimed to explore the affordability of the fishing village from the children’s perspective. Janatun divided children’s play zones on the coast into several areas during the data collection. The analysis employed content analysis and spatial analysis processes in the form of behavioral mapping. The research shows how children in the fishing village interact with nature in their daily lives which are categorized in perceived affordances, utilized affordances and shaped affordances.
The first Open Lecture then continued with a brief discussion, also question and answer between the participants and speakers related to the research that had been carried out which signaled the end of the Open Lecture. The event received an incredible response not only from Indonesia but also from surrounding countries such as Malaysia and Singapore.