QUEZON CITY -- With the continuous evolution of social media and other digital-based platforms, numerous opportunities and tools have become readily available, particularly when it comes to promoting products, services, and advocacies of our respective organizations.

With this in mind, the Department of Science and Technology-Science and Technology Information Institute (DOST-STII) and the Association of Science and Mathematics Educators of the Philippine Private Schools (ASMEPPS) are working together to come up with activities and programs that would instill a culture of science among Filipino students and teachers using social media and the broadcast platform.

On July 14-15, 2022, a two-day seminar for 60 science and math teachers from the 20 member-schools of ASMEPPS was held at the St. Francis of Assisi College in Bacoor City, Cavite. Titled “Communicating Science through Social Media Posting and Digital Broadcasting”, the science and mathematics teachers learned how to craft compelling S&T related content suitable for various social media, like Facebook, and in using digital broadcast platforms.

“It has been shared to us that several member-schools of ASMEPPS have been maintaining their own FB pages, wherein they are posting all the activities and other relevant posts and journals that would spur the interests of young students on science and technology,” said DOST-STII Director Richard P. Burgos in his video message.

Burgos added that DOST-STII would like to help ASMEPPS, especially the science and mathematics teachers, learn how to communicate and promote scientific concepts and knowledge in easy-to-understand and entertaining ways to enable the students to appreciate them more.

“We are very fortunate to have a reliable partner like DOST-STII. Aside from sharing their resources and products like STARBOOKS and S&T Post to our member-schools, they have been helping us to find our niche in terms of promoting our activities and advocacy by providing several capacity building activities,” said ASMEPPS President Eloisa Olivera.

Olivera stressed that all their member-schools have tons of available materials and content from their recent science-related activities that they would want to promote to a wider audience. This is the reason why the two-day training was very timely as participants are interested in learning how to repackage their materials suitable for social media channels like Facebook and YouTube.

On the first day, Jachin Jane Aberilla, DOST-STII's social media manager, shared with the teacher-participants the benefits of utilizing various social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok to promote various science related activities and advocacies to a larger audience.

Meanwhile, DOST-STII's multimedia artist, Lanquin Seyer Gacusan emphasized in his lectures the basic concepts of layout and design as well as the importance of identifying and developing one’s own brand in various social media pages. He also conducted a hands-on demonstration session for the teacher-participants in crafting layout design using Canva.

On the second day, Resty R. Balila, program manager of DOSTv, gave a brief overview of DOSTv and its regular programs and segments that serve as promotional vehicles for the DOST and its knowledge products and services. On the other hand, Carmela P. Aguisanda, Information Officer II and resident video editor of DOSTv, provided a comprehensive lecture on video production for broadcast platforms. It included scriptwriting, storyboard making, video shooting, lighting techniques, camera framing, and video editing.

The seminar-workshop is just one of the major activities of the Science Journo Ako Advocacy program of the DOST-STII under the partnership between DOST-STII and ASMEPPS that seeks to strengthen science communication in the country and to instill a culture of science among the students and teachers from the member-schools of ASMEPPS. (AMVMarfal, DOST-STII)