All six Taiwanese participants in the 20th International Junior Science Olympiad, which was held in Thailand and ended yesterday, won gold medals, which put Taiwan in first place at the competition.
A total of 304 students from 54 countries and regions participated in the olympiad this year, with Taiwan sending two students each from three different junior-high schools. The Taiwanese team included Wu Ssu-chien (吳思謙) and Yan Tzu-chiao (顏子喬) from Taipei Municipal Chien Kuo High School; Chan Wei-chun (詹緯濬) and Lai Ching-yu (賴敬宇) from Taipei Municipal Dunhua Junior High School, and Hung Ching-cheng (洪靖承) and Su Cheng-hsuan (蘇程玹) from Tainan Municipal Jian Sing Junior High School.
Yan also scored highest overall among all participants in the competition.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Education
Commenting on the win, Yan said he was driven by his interest in science, and said that personal interest in the subject was key to his success. Reading instructions carefully and not rushing is also very important, he said.
The members of Taiwan’s team were chosen by a selection committee and coached by National Taiwan Normal University professors Lu Chia-jung (呂家榮), Lu Kuo-tung (呂國棟), Chang Yung-ta (張永達) and Fu Tzu-yi (傅祖怡), and assistant professor Liu Yi-hsin (劉沂欣). The team flew to Bangkok for the competition on Nov. 30, and returned on Wednesday.
The six students would each receive a recommendation for entrance to a top high school or junior college, as well as receiving a NT$200,000 scholarship, Ministry of Education official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said.
Taiwan has participated in the Olympiad every year it was held since 2004, and to date has won 97 gold medals, 17 silver medals and two special awards for individual student experiments. It has also won two gold medals, one silver medal and two bronze medals for group experiments, 12 best theory awards, nine highest total score awards and has been ranked as the top country or region in the competition 12 times.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) yesterday promised it would increase oversight of use of Chinese in course materials, following a social media outcry over instances of simplified Chinese characters being used, including in a final exam. People on Threads wrote that simplified Chinese characters were used on a final exam and in a textbook for a translation course at the university, while the business card of a professor bore the words: “Taiwan Province, China.” Photographs of the exam, the textbook and the business card were posted with the comments. NKUST said that other members of the faculty did not see
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9 am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), a neighboring apartment building tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the site with water to stabilize the groundwater level and then added dirt
RSS