Department of Biology

1. The Young Scholar Programme for Biology
   (http://www.bio.cuhk.edu.hk/bio/ysp.htm)

   The Young Scholar Programme for Biology (YSPB) is one of the popular events organized yearly by the Department of Biology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, with the Education and Manpower Bureau, Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. More than 14,000 students and teachers from more than 160 secondary schools have already attended the programme. The YSPB provides summer learning and research programme for both the teachers and students for enhancing teaching and learning, as well as bridging the gap between tertiary and secondary school sectors in biology education. Among the 3 components of the YSPB, the seminar series is designed not only to provide updated information in biotechnology, human evolution, disease, as well as environmental sciences, but also to stimulate further discussions among secondary school teachers and students. The teaching enhancement workshop, on the other hand, aims at training for creative thinking and mastering of scientific investigative skills as well as targeting problems encountered by secondary school teachers in teaching. In the research sector, the selected students will gain hands-on research experience and scientific presentation skill in addition to university life experience.

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2. Hong Kong Flora and Vegetation  (http://www.hkflora.com)

   The Hong Kong Flora and Vegetation website is the formal output of the project "A Web-based Database and Training for Hong Kong Flora and Vegetation" funded by the Quality Education Fund.

   Through the Hong Kong Flora Website we hope to:

   1. improve the current educational approaches of secondary schools in teaching plant science in classes and within laboratories;
   2. facilitate lifelong learning about the botanical nature with our web-database, and;
   3. establish specific Quality Education Fund plant study sites and trails in Hong Kong.

   The website provides information on local plant biodiversity and ecology, basic principles of plant identification, as well as materials for field studies. Instructions on the identification of three major groups of local plants, namely the Euphorbiaceae, the Gymnosperms and the Bryophytes are also given and supplemented with more than 500 images. Links to local & foreign botanical or plant-related web sites are also provided to facilitate searching of information on plants.

   Based on several local sites each with characteristic vegetation, web-based plant study sites or trails animating the vegetation in the Victoria Peak, Pui O Beach, and Chung Chi College of CUHK were introduced recently. Visitors can venture through the sites and trails on-line and experience the virtual study trails through the interactive labels and pop-up descriptions of the plant species.

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3. Teacher Development Courses for Secondary School A-Level Biology Teachers 2000
   
   Workshops on Learning and Teaching Strategies for A-Level Biology in 2001-02 and 2002-03 School Year

   The aim of these workshops are to strengthen teachers' understanding of and interest in modern biological sciences, so that teachers may in turn stimulate their students' interest and appreciation in the life sciences subjects. The long-term goal is to inspire and propagate interest in science, and to disseminate everyday-life and newly discovered scientific knowledge and its applications to enrich the quality of life in our society.