NanoMaja: A Hands-on Educational Program to Enhance Nanotechnology Understanding among High School Students at SMA Gotong Royong Kota Bangun

Abstract

Nanotechnology has become a vital field in modern science and technology; however, its integration into secondary education remains limited, leading to low student understanding of nanoscale concepts. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the NanoMaja Educational Program in improving students’ understanding of nanotechnology. This study employed a descriptive quantitative approach using a one-group pretest–posttest design. The program was conducted at SMA Gotong Royong, Kutai Kartanegara, involving 85 students from grades 10–12. The intervention consisted of two sessions: interactive learning on nanotechnology concepts using visual and contextual approaches, and a hands-on experiment involving simple green synthesis of nanomaterials. Data were collected through multiple-choice pretest and post-test instruments and analyzed using mean score comparison and normalized gain (N-gain). The results showed a significant improvement in students’ understanding, with the average score increasing from 48.2 to 82.6, and an N-gain value of 0.66, categorized as moderate to high. This improvement indicates that interactive, contextual, and experiment-based learning effectively enhances conceptual understanding and student engagement. In conclusion, the NanoMaja program is effective in introducing nanotechnology at the secondary school level. Future studies are recommended to involve larger samples, control groups, and long-term assessments to strengthen the findings.