Science Alive 2011 – Living Chemistry

FameLab winner

Students Debate

Professor Peter Barham Science lecture

Professor Jim Al-Khalili Science lecture

Bearing the mission to promote science among people from all disciplines and to nurture a wider understanding of the field, especially amongst teachers and students, the British Council is committed to organizing the annual mega event, the Science Alive (SA). It is sponsored by the Croucher Foundation and jointly organized by the Education Bureau, LCSD, Hong Kong Science Museum and the Hong Kong Education City Limited.

Every year, Science Alive invites leading UK academics and communicators in the various fields of science to engage Hong Kong’s students, teachers and the public in activities that promote a wider understanding of science. To ensure more target groups are engaged in this anniversary celebration, the SA programme is developed with the slogan ‘learning science is fun’ in mind. How it does this is through an array of strategies aiming to make it lively and interactive (hence, making science “alive”) and all the programmes are free of charge.

2011 also marks the 20th anniversary of Science Alive in Hong Kong. Apart from continued support made by the partners and sponsors, special thanks must go to the many teacher, student and parent participants who help bring ‘science alive’.

Readers are welcome to take a glance at some of the archive photos in SA 2010 below and for sure all can sense the fun elicited in the events.

Academics Debate

To appreciate achievements of global outstanding chemists and contribution of Chemistry to mankind so far, United Nations has long been decided to initiate world-wide celebration schemes for sake of increase the public appreciation of chemistry in meeting world needs and nurture interest of young people in chemistry. Riding on this year is 100th Anniversary of Marie Curie’s receiving the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and foundation of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), the IUPAC proclaimed 2011 to be the IYC in August 2007and agreed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) shortly and ultimately led to the declaration by United Nations General Assembly in December 2008 that 2011 be the IYC with the theme “Chemistry – Our Life Our Future”.

To be more concrete, all known matter in our world - whether gas, liquid or solid - is made of chemical elements or of compounds made from those elements. Chemistry is more than just the periodic table but also about meeting global challenges such as the world’s need for clean water, sustainable energy and advanced materials. Basically, we are living examples of chemistry.

To celebrate the IYC, the SA 2011 is purposed to get all aware about Chemistry in lives, ranging from the microscopic side of matter composition by particles to macro view of learning chemical mechanisms in all living processes and even promising adoption of knowledge to deal with stinging world challenges like global warming, food crisis, etc.

SA 2011 is determined to take place in between 14th -23rd November 2011 while programme matrix are awesome, which includes:

Portions of the programme are equipped with learning and teaching material as tabulated below.

Programme	Learning & Teaching Material
Lecture – Challenge Chemistry	Pre-event PPT
	Pre-event materials
	Post-event materials
Lecture – Have you eaten rice yet?	Pre-event PPT
	Pre-event materials
	Post-event materials
Lecture – Our Life Our Future	Pre event materials
Lecture – Our Life Our Future	Post event materials
T & S workshop	Pre event PPT
	Pre event materials
	Post event PPT
	Post event materials

Science Alive 2011 bilingual brochure

QR Code - Science Alive 2011 Apart from the offline dedication in oversee the whole event, British Council Hong Kong has established an official website for the SA 2011 and details of discrete programme are mounted at it for reference. For sake of deeper understanding of the event by the potential participants, a bilingual brochure is provided here for downloading.

Offline registration will start in early October and forms downloaded at BC’s site while e-services teachers can swap to online mode for enrolment via the Training Calendar System (TCS) of Education Bureau, HKSAR within the same period.

As a concluding remark, one will without doubt that SA is a terrific initiative suits all and just resembles a code from the BC’s official link: ‘It is hoped that the programmes will bring all fresh ideas and inspiration about different aspects of science while demonstrating that learning and teaching such subjects can be creative and fun!’