OUCRU Ho Chi Minh

May 31, 2024

Nurturing Future Generations’ Passion for Science through Engagement with Children and Teachers

At OUCRU, we believe that science can excite and inspire children, contribute to their understanding of the world, and present opportunities for life skill development. The better children understand and appreciate science, the better-informed decisions they can make throughout their lives.

To make science more approachable and engaging, OUCRU’s Public and Community Engagement group conducts a range of activities using several appealing, up-to-date formats to transform national programme’s science books, simplify complex concepts such as AMR, vaccinations, and climate change via comics, cartoon, plays, and other rich-media formats. Those media outputs can be also served as educational materials for schools as our contribution to address the shortcomings of scientific educational materials in Vietnam.

Explore our approaches below.

Comics

The Vaccine Journal

Created by Dr Phan Nguyen Quoc Khanh, this cute comic helps young families understand deadly diseases and the protective role of vaccines. This project was funded by Seed Awards.
Read the Vaccine comic’s summary in English and the full Vaccine comic in Vietnamese here.

Science Comics

These visuals belonged to Making Science Make Sense project, used visuals and slang for better learning concise science knowledge. They were edited by young people and distributed via social media.
Read Science Comics here.

Cartoon

Tales of Typhoid

With the English subtitle, this Nepali animation aims to raise awareness about typhoid fever, its transmission, prevention, diagnosis, and the proper use of antibiotics. It’s an enjoyable way to learn about typhoid!
‘Tales on Typhoid’ was funded by Seed Awards.

Collab Lab

Collab Lab, a series of short explaining videos that summarised published papers on growing global health issues. Youth Science Ambassadors worked together with scientists to make these cartoons.
Watch all Collab Lab episodes here.

Science Theatres

Science theatres are an effective method to communicate complex scientific information in an interactive, engaging, and humorous way. Our latest shows, “Take medicine recklessly, bacteria can resist,” in Vietnam and Bichara Antibiotic in Nepal aim to raise awareness about AMR and promote correct actions.

Watch summaries of some of our last science theatre shows here.

Podcasts

As a part of the Making Science Make Sense project, the team and their young collaborators, Science Stans, shared science knowledge via teen-friendly media like comics, infographics, podcasts, and videos.

Listen to the series here.

Friends of Science - A Science Contest

This contest, part of the same project, allowed students to communicate science topics creatively.

View all entries here.

One Health Book

Another activity of Science Switch is the One Health book, featuring scientific writing from over 20 scientists. The book offers young readers scientific explanations and engaging illustrations on various topics.

Read One Health book here in Vietnamese.

FEATURED

Science Visits

These interactive sessions provide opportunities for young adults and adolescents to experience working in a research unit. Events like Chat with Scientists and Science Visits offer chances for young people to interact with scientists, ask questions, and participate in hands-on experiments.

OUCRU’s Public and Community Engagement is organising this year’s Science Visits events. Contact us if you want to nominate your youth club and/or school!