(10 June 2022) Amgen Korea (GM: Sang-Kyung Noh) and the Seoul Science Center (Director: Jung-Gyu Lee) announced the opening of the ‘Grow up, Bio up Offline Family Science Lab 2022 (Family Science Lab)’ designed to support bio science education of children and adolescents in Korea, to provide opportunities for them to be hands-on and learn more about the body, disease and health.
The Offline Family Science Lab is created as part of the Grow up, Bio up science education campaign to support bio science education of children and adolescents in Korea and help foster great scientific minds of the future. The Grow up, Bio up science education campaign is one of the CSR initiatives at Amgen Korea for children and adolescents through an MOU with the Center since 2020 for promotion of bio science education.
The virtual bio science experiment platform ‘Grow up, Bio up Online Lab’ was launched last year in line with the constraints the COVID-19 pandemic imposed. Starting from this year, ‘Grow up, Bio up Offline Family Science Lab’ is opened where participants can perform body-, disease-, or health-themed bio science experiments with their family.
‘Grow up, Bio up Family Science Lab 2022’ is designed to help children and adolescents who usually have limited opportunities for science education or experiments address their thirst for learning and be more hands-on with science education, by actually manipulating special lab devices from the Center. The major programs consist of 8 hands-on science experiments through which participants can find an answer to human body-, disease- and health-related questions they might have in such areas as cancer, virus, anemia, parasite, the heart, and mosquito. In the “Cancer and cell line: What is organoid?” program, for instance, participants get to have a chance to observe many different types of cancer cells, learn about organelle and DNA, and extract DNA from cells. Other programs are also planned covering a variety of themes from parasite and mosquito to virus. Special lecturers, including a researcher from an animal ecology lab or a doctor from the Korean Cell Line Bank, will join as well for experiments combined with classroom learning.
Sang Noh, GM, Amgen Korea, said, “Some may think bio science has nothing to do with our daily lives, but in fact it is so closely related to us, especially our body. As the COVID-19 pandemic for the past 2 years has raised awareness for health and diseases, I hope that the Grow up, Bio up Family Science Lab from Amgen Korea and the Seoul Science Center offers an otherwise-scarce chance to explore and be hands-on with principles of bio science. I am also hoping that the Grow up, Bio up science education programs that combine Amgen’s biology-first approach with the Center’s expertise in science give a new-found joy of learning science to even more children, adolescents and their families, and contribute to a wider penetration of scientific research as well as fostering of great next-generation scientific minds. Amgen Korea will remain committed to science education for children and adolescents in Korea and building a stronger foundation for the science culture, as part of our efforts to bring ESG(Environmental, Social, Governance) aspirations to life.”
Jung-Gyu Lee, Director, the Seoul Science Center, said, “The Grow up, Bio up Family Science Lab marks an exciting opportunity for us and Amgen Korea to offer exuberant and relevant science education for children and adolescents in Korea. The Offline Family Science Lab is especially meaningful in that it reflects core values at biotechnology leader Amgen and the Seoul Science Center’s pursuit of expanding thoughts through science learnt at a classroom and practiced with first-hand experience. I hope it can spark interest in the human body, disease, health or other bio science domains among children and adolescents so that they can aspire to learn more.”
‘Grow up, Bio up Family Science Lab’ is open to any families with children or adolescents who are 4th grader or older. Anyone interested can go to the Center’s website and submit an application in advance by Friday 17 June. Two sessions – at 10am and 2pm – are planned for 2 weekends between Saturday 18 June and Sunday 26 June, and each lecture has a maximum audience capacity of 20 people. One can apply for multiple lecturers as well.
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