ObjectiveIn Ethiopia, any part of Calpurnia aurea is used for the treatment of different ailments: to destroy lice and ticks, to relieve itches, syphilis, malaria, rabies, diabetes, hypertension, diarrhoea, leishmaniasis, trachoma, elephantiasis, fungal diseases, stomach-ache, bowel, bladder disorders and different swellings. However, despite its traditional usage as an agent, there is limited or no information regarding the antioxidant activity assay profile of the root part unlike other parts. Hence; the researcher interested to assess the in vitro antioxidant activities of the root extracts of Calpurnia aurea. MethodsCalpurnia aurea root was collected from around Jimma Arjo highland, East Wollega, Western Ethiopia. The collected plant material was dried and powdered using electrical grinder and then macerated within four organic solvents: hexane (99%), chloroform (99.9%), ethanol (97%) and methanol (99.8%) according to their increasing polarity index for 72 hours with mechanical shaking within 4 hours interval in average and it was filtered through Whatman No.1 filter paper and the filtrate was dried using Rotary evaporator. The in-vitro antioxidant properties were assessed through DPPH (1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl) in ethanol solution both qualitatively and quantitatively. ResultsThe ethanol extract of the root part of Calpurnia aurea has shown better antioxidant activity at 100 μg/mL (81.63%) when compared to the standard reference (ascorbic acid, 86.88%) and other extracts (chloroform, methanol, and n-hexane i.e., 71.72%, 36.40% and 26.14%, respectively) at the same concentration. Hexane root extract showed very weak or almost negligible activity. ConclusionIt is evident from this study that highest the root part of the plant species has shown antioxidant potential which could be highly correlated with presence of flavonoids, tannins and phenolic compounds in general. Therefore, the root extract of Calpurnia aurea can be quantified for application in pharmaceutical industry.

The researchers interested to assess and improve the general understanding of Generalist Focus Year II students in Nekemte College of Teacher education on chemical symbols, chemical formulae and chemical equations which are the fundamental elements of chemistry for anyone to begin learning this subject. Methods:The study was both qualitative and quantitative type of research, because both numerical and non-numerical data were collected during the study through questionnaire, classroom observation, pre-and post-attitude tests and written tests. As type and source of data, the study used only primary. We used all the population as samples (totally 98 students in both sections) purposely. For the implementation of the action research, we first prepared action plan, applied the interventions, analyzed the changes and reported the results.Results: Based on our null hypothesis, from both attitude tests (questionnaire) and written tests (for both pre-and post-) there is progressive change observed after interventions. From the base line data questionnaire of 15 items, almost 79.5 % of the respondents disagreed for items 1-11 (except item 5) which are assessing the students background on chemical symbols, chemical formulae and chemical equations and very high interest was raised from the students on items 12-15 (highest agreement for both item 12 & 13 by 93.88 % response) which were asking students' interest to learn the basic elements of chemistry languages. After interventions, both post-tests showed correlatively progressive figure in addition to the observations conducted during all interventions. For the attitude test analysis almost, the reverse responses were recorded with agreement response (in average 71.93 %) and for the written test result analysis at p (0.05) the t-statistic is greater than t-critical in all the three cases i.e. chemical symbols, chemical formulae and chemical equations.