CREATIVE CHEMISTRY COMPETITION ATTRACTS BRIGHT FUTURE SCIENTISTS

Posted by tscx on 17 March, 2008 11:51

Hundreds of young and bright high school students wearing goggles and white coats were seen pouring strange looking substance from one tube to another on 8/3 at the Chung Ling Chemistry Hall. It was a fair and square contest held by the Department of Chemistry for young chemistry enthusiasts. This 3 year old Chung Ling Creative Chemistry Competition attracted 218 teams consisted of 654 contestants from 53 high schools, the highest number so far. Each team was made up of three contestants.

The competition was divided into two stages with a written test on the basic knowledge of chemistry given in the first stage. The qualification threshold for the second stage was decided by the average score of the test from the three people on the team. As a result, 32 teams were qualified to attend the lab work that determined the champions. In the lab, contestants were asked to create colloidal gold (particles that are also known as “nanogold”) produced in a liquid by reducing chloroauric acid with the help of a reducing agent, in this case, sldium borohydride. After several trials and errors, National Experimental High School at Hsinchu Science Park finally clinched the first place, winning NT$30,000 prize money, followed by National Changhua Senior High School and National Chung-Li Senior High School, who won NT$ 15,000 and NT$ 10,500 respectively.

He Ying-you, a member of the champion team, was not daunted by the challenge despite the high difficulty presented by the experiment, as he had been informed about this technique at various lectures before. Other students, although didn’t win big prizes, were already very excited about being able to attend and were impressed by the state-of-the-art equipment they found at TKU labs.

Three years ago when the competition was first inaugurated, it attracted 75 teams from 30 schools. Last year, it attracted 170 teams from 44 schools, and this year with 218 teams from 53 schools, the trend is certainly upward and optimistic, as pointed out by Wang Bo-cheng, the Chair of the Department of Chemistry. He is pleased with the expanding exposure of TKU in the science circle, and yet with this exposure, Jung-hua Tseng, Director of the Alumni Association of Department of Chemistry, is worried that next year they may have to look for a bigger venue if the trend continues.

Team competition aside, excellent individual performances in written test were also awarded with a MP3 (for the first and second place) or a six month prescription of “Science Monthly” (for the third place). ( Tamkang e-Times NO.707 ~Ying-hsueh Hu )

504 SENIOR HIGHS' CHEMISTRY CONTEST: CHANG-HUA WINS GOLD PRIZE, TAIPEI FIRST GIRL SILVER

Posted by tscx on 26 March, 2007 11:47

On March 18, Department of Chemistry hosted the 2nd high-school “Chung-ling Chemistry Innovation Contest” 504 students, doubling the number of 225 last year, from 60 senior high schools nationwide, including Taipei First Girl High School and Cheng-kung High School, formed 169 teams to participate the event. Gold prize went to Chang-hua Senior High; silver, Taipei First Girl; bronze, Kaohsiung senior High.

With the intimacy to daily life and stimulation of creativity as its central concepts, the contest was divided into two sections: first, an exam on students’ basic chemical knowledge; second, the problem-solving experiment with the provided apparatuses and materials and within the time limitation. Grouping was not limited by age and school. Students who passed the first section were qualified to enter the second. Lin Yo-shih, Taipei First Girls’ third grader who won the prize of excellence in the first section, indicated with confidence, “Topics of exam are easier than those of the recommendation exam. I did not make full preparations, but I am able to handle them properly.” Chen Yi-yang, a first grader from Taichung Senior High who won the same prize as Lin, commented that topics were easy enough to be finished within 30 minutes.

32 groups were qualified in the first section to enter the second. Participants put on laboratory outfits and glasses to conduct the experiment on “the amount of phospho-acid in oxygenated water and the density of calcium ion in water-processing.” Wu Chun-hung (assistant professor of Department of Chemistry), one of the designers of the exam, explained that the addition of calcium ion to water can reduce the phenomenon of oxygenization, but too much calcium ion may lead to the stiffening of water, and the resultant sediments will decrease energy efficiency and, worse, engender explosion. This experiment adopted the method of “drop-fixing” that controls the density of phospho-acid and calcium ion and calculates the proper amount of calcium ion required to process the quality of oxygenated water.

Ranking was decided by judges according to various groups’ creativity and skills: gold prize of 30,000, silver 15,000, bronze 10,000, and prize of good work 1,000. All participants were given certificates of participation. Yeh Jing-yuan, Huang Chun-yao and Fan Kung-wei, third graders of Chung-hua Senior High, could not resist their excitement when the result of the contest was announced. Yeh said, “The objective of experiment is to estimate the density of phospho-acid and calcium ion. Perhaps, we win because of our accurate estimation and creative method.”

Two speeches by Chien Su-fang (professor of Dept. of Chemistry) and Deng Jin-pei (assistant professor of Dept. of Chemistry) on currently popular bio-technology and material chemistry. Chair of Dept. of Chemistry, Wang Po-cheng, said that he was glad to see so many distinguished senior high students in this contest. More similar activities will be held to stimulate students’ interest in chemistry and cultivate their chemistrical knowledge. ( Tamkang e-Times NO.671~Han-yu Huang )

RESULTS OF HIGH SCHOOL CHEMISTRY CONTEST UNVEIL

Posted by tscx on 06 March, 2006 11:20

The results of the first “Chung-ling Chemistry Innovation Contest ” for high school students held by the Department of Chemistry have been announced. The top two high schools in Taiwan, Taipei Municipal Chien-Kuo High School for Boys, and Taipei First Girl High School for Girls, respectively, won the first and second prize. The third place went to the Yun-lin Cheng-hsin High School, while five other high schools won the Best Works.

One of the judges of the contest, Professor Wang Wen-jwu, was pleased with all the performances. He described the two questions presented to the contestants as practical and innovative. The first question was to ask them to assemble batteries to be connected with a LED unit, so as to measure its current. The second question dealt with preserving books from disintegrating with time. Based on the degree of their creative solutions, the soundness of applied theories, and the completeness of the experiment documentation, judges decided on the winners.

225 students in 75 teams took part in the written test in the morning, from which 90 students in 30 teams were selected for the second stage of contest. At this stage, they had to put on lab coats and goggles to discuss ways of conducting their experiments creatively.

Most students were thrilled to be at Tamkang and found the contest very stimulating and challenging. Some of them had some hair-raising moments, such as Chung Hong-Jie form Ping Tung High School, who and his team-mates only worked out the solution 30 minutes before the end of the experiment. It was better late than never for them, as their result won one of the awards for Best Works. Apparently, their trip to Tamkang paid off, since they had taken a midnight train from southern Taiwan the night before to arrive at Tamkang in time for the contest. Those who did not win any award were still happy to be here to witness the well-equipped Chung-ling Chemistry Hall. The champions of the contests, students from Chien-Kuo , were proud of their own delivery, but admitted that some questions in the written test were rather tricky. They had to exercise great caution in order to give top performance. They were awarded with NT$ 30,000 of prize money, which may not amount to too much when divided among the four members. However, one of them, Ma Shan-der is not worried, as he would give his entire share to his mother.

Wang Bo-cheng, the Chair of the Department of Chemistry, sees this event as a successful PR exercise. Several high schools are already considering organizing science summer camps with them. He also proposed some improvement for any future event, for example, the assessment of the written test was too slow this time as it was not computerized. Therefore, a computerized assessment system will be installed in the future. (Tkmkang e-Times NO.635~ Ying-hsueh Hu )