Let's Play Science - 2023 Tainan Science Week begins-國立成功大學永續發展SDGs

The "2023 Tainan Science Week", a major event to promote science popularization, was launched at the opening ceremony of Jiangjyun Junior High School on May 29. The organizer, the Center for Science Education of NCKU, has planned 10 science booths and a science escape room with the theme of "熱力四射" this year. Students had to experience and do experiments at the booths first, and then team up to enter the escape room to solve puzzles, open treasure boxes, and escape from the room with the science knowledge and ability they learned from the science fair. The students who participated in the activity said unanimously that the science experience was very interesting, and that there were scientific principles behind many phenomena, and that science did not seem so difficult!

The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), the Tainan City Government and NCKU have cooperated to promote science popularization, and a team of professors from NCKU has designed science activities and teaching aids based on different themes from the content of the junior high school natural science curriculum. 2023 National Science Week in Tainan City will be held in 25 junior high schools. The opening ceremony was attended by NCKU Vice President Yuh-Neu Chen, College of Science Dean Chin-Chun Tsai, NCKU Physics Department Professor Rue-Ron Hsu, Science Education Center Director Yi Yang, City Hall Education Bureau Deputy Director Kun-Yuan Wang, and Jiangjyun Junior High School Principal Yuan-Ju Hsieh. Teachers and students from many of the schools also attended the event.

Vice President Chen said in her speech that she was afraid of physics when she was in junior high school, and she once failed an exam and even cried because of it. However, after participating in the activities of the Science Education Center of NCKU, I found that science is actually very interesting. The National Science Week activities are not only funded by the NSTC, but also subsidized by the Education Bureau. The funds are used to design and produce lesson plans and teaching aids, which will also be left on the campus of the junior high school, becoming an important resource for science education and stimulating students' interest in science and learning.

City Hall Education Bureau Deputy Director Kun-Yuan Wang thanked NCKU for its excellent design and planning since Tainan National Science Week was held. Jiangjyun Junior High School is far away from the city, the arrival of the science education this year represents a high-intensity connection between NCKU and the local community, bringing the resources of the university to promote science education and scientific life knowledge and scientific literacy. 

The 10 science booths were divided into two themes: "heat and temperature" and "force and collision", with 10 sets of experiments (enthusiasm thermometer, drinking bird, Galileo thermometer, cone rolling, tension overall, Newton's pendulum, cloud-raising device, light mill, four taels hanging a thousand pounds, water cup ping-pong). Each booth was staffed by a student from Jiangjun Junior High School, who had previously received training from both the Center for Science Education and Jiangjyun Junior High School.

The organizer also built a science chamber in Jiangjyun Junior High School, which contains five puzzles from the science fair, in order to test the extension of scientific knowledge and thinking ability of the gate-crasher, and to train the tacit understanding and mutual support spirit of the group during the process. The Center for Science Education of NCKU points out that the success of the level is in fact an assessment of the learning status, and the final puzzle will be solved and reviewed for the gate-crasher to strengthen the learning effectiveness.

Jiansing Junior High School student You-Yu Liu said that the puzzles in the escape room are the principles and extensions of temperature, heat, force, and motion in the natural science curriculum, and the process of solving them is exciting, interesting, and a bit stressful. One needs to be calm and think logically in order to find the answers quickly.

The student who worked as an interpreter at the science booth of Jiangjyun Junior High School, Xin-Ni Wu, said that being an interpreter made her understand the importance of expression ability. Interpreting again and again will make herself clearer and better understand the scientific principles, and consequently, she will want to get in touch with science more.

Prof. Yi Yang, Director of Science Education Center, pointed out that the 10 experiments in the 2023 Tainan Science Week Science Fair have been developed into lesson plans, teaching aids, and complete handouts, and have been delivered to the 25 junior high schools that will hold the Science Week and have completed the related training courses. These lesson plans and teaching aids correspond to "Temperature and Heat," "Force and Motion," and "Forms and Transformations of Energy" in the natural science curriculum of junior high schools, and can be brought into the curriculum separately to deepen science education and cultivate scientific talents.

Since 2015, the National Science Week activities in Tainan City have been held with teaching materials and lesson plans developed by a team of professors from NCKU, who have written exercise sheets and graphic handouts for teachers to use as supplementary teaching materials. This year's lesson plans were delivered in mid-April in the form of seed teacher-student camps to the junior high schools that will hold Science Week activities. So far, NCKU has developed 60 science lesson plans and teaching materials for schools to use.