Secondary school students explore fun in science at CityU Science and Engineering Fun Days

The Faculty of Science and Engineering at City University of Hong Kong (CityU) is hosting “Science and Engineering Fun Days” starting from today (26 July) until 28 July.

The activities are specially designed for senior secondary school students to learn how modern technologies change our daily lives. The aim is to demonstrate how interesting and lively science and engineering can be and inspire students’ interest in science and technology subjects. In addition, the activities provide students with a better understanding of the learning environment and facilities at CityU.

“We hope to spread the spirit of scientific research to secondary schools and encourage students to think more and try more, discover their own potential, make the most of their boundless creativity, and apply what they have learnt to their daily lives,” said Professor Henry Chung Shu-hung of the Department of Electronic Engineering, the coordinator of the event.

Applied research with fundamental studies as the core is one of the main focuses of CityU, according to Professor Chung. “We have been working hard to apply our latest research achievements to improve daily lives,” he said.

With 300 F4 to F7 students joining the “Fun Days” this year, CityU professors will deliver talks on artificial intelligence applications in Hong Kong, service-oriented robots, and the production of soy sauce and fermented bean curd.

Participants will also visit laboratories equipped with the latest scientific research equipments and engage in a number of lab sessions under the guidance of CityU researchers and students. The experiments cover biology, chemistry, building and construction, computer science, electronic engineering, manufacturing engineering, physics and materials science.

In these sessions, participants will familiarize themselves with fun facts about science that are closely related to everyday life, for example the growth and assimilation of microbes; computer simulation of human body movements; intelligent LEGO (toy brick) automobile programming; information security and coding, and the relations between sound and light energy.

The “Science and Engineering Fun Days” event is just one of the programmes for the Summer Activities 2006 organized by CityU’s Faculty of Science and Engineering. The other two activities are a project-based outreach programme and a summer laboratory attachment scheme.

The Faculty has put a great deal of effort into promoting application-based professional education, and the “Fun Days” will give secondary school students a taste of quality tertiary science education.