NEST Workshop: The Ocean Science Lab brings the wonders of the sea to the kids

Cyberjaya, Malaysia, 18 September 2025 – Once again, Leave a Nest Malaysia successfully conducted a school holiday edition of the NEST Workshop entitled The Ocean Science Lab. Primary school students from around the Klang Valley joined us. The main message in this series is clear. We want children to see the wonders of the ocean and learn science through nature, from biology to chemistry to physics, in line with the letter “N” in NEST which stands for Nature.

In the morning, the students learned about biology, focusing on DNA that exists in all living organisms including ocean creatures and also humans. They explored genetic traits and how everyone is unique. From the OctoTraits, an octopus model, that learnt about dominant and recessive traits for this class. After that, they extracted DNA from fruit, especially banana, and tasted strawberry like real scientists, using materials that can be found in the home kitchen. Finally, they were introduced to the double helix structure, and to make it more impactful they folded an origami model of the double helix. This slot was presented by Dr Anis Nadyra Zifruddin from Leave a Nest Malaysia.

For chemistry, our intern who is passionate in ocean studies, Mr Amr Yasser Montasser Abdelaziz, introduced the different ocean zones and the uniqueness of the creatures in each zone. Using their own imagination, the students drew an ocean creature and decided which zone it belongs to. They were also introduced to different conditions in the ocean, including salinity and pH. The kids enjoyed mixing different pH conditions and discovered how mixing basic and acidic solutions can create bubbles like a small volcano.

In the final slot, another intern who is an electronics engineering student, Mr Muhammad Hasif bin Saiful Ashik, explained submarine systems and how they move by relating them to the concept of electricity. The students were introduced to simple electric circuits and built a small circuit to power a submarine light using graphite. We also emphasise the importance of being a smart user of electricity.

At the end, certificates were awarded by the Director of Leave a Nest Malaysia, Mr Nur Ahmad Zaim Hussin. This workshop was supported by our industry partners CULTA, Matrioux (M) Sdn Bhd, and Natural Scientific Resources. We keep on reminding the kids to look at nature and to keep their curiosity alive. There is still so much to learn from nature, and there is still so much to discover. We look forward to sharing more science with the students in the future.