TKU truck lab takes chemistry to Taiwan

2015-04-20

A mobile lab from New Taipei City-based Tamkang University is readying to host its 200th chemistry roadshow for high school students in June.

Converted from a 3.5-ton truck, the lab is decked out with the latest equipment and experimental gadgetry. Since it first hit the road in 2011, the facility has visited over 185 schools, clocking up 40,000 kilometers around Taiwan and the outlying islands.

“The project started as a joint initiative between several local tertiary institutions and Taipei City-based Chinese Chemical Society to celebrate the International Year of Chemistry 2011,” team leader Kao Hsien-chang of TKU’s Department of Chemistry said.

“With government funding of NT$1.5 million [US$48,200] and support from TKU’s College of Science, a group of volunteers from the chemistry department built the lab with the goal of disseminating basic knowledge of chemistry far and wide.”

Experiments staged for the youth are in essence magic performances shaped by science, Kao said, adding that by transforming textbook facts through interesting, lively presentations, the lab is helping impart fundamental knowledge of chemicals to young and enquiring minds.

“For instance, substances like propylene that triggered last year’s Kaohsiung gas explosions and copper chlorophyll in the recent oil scandal are not evil by nature,” Kao said. “Both are closely related to everyday life and can be put to use in very positive ways.

“If we can get students interested in this discipline with our lab, then fostering a new generation of scientists dedicated to the study of chemistry should be as easy as 1-2-3.”

After 8 1/2 laps around Taiwan in four years, the team now boasts a repertoire of 16 presentations. “We are looking forward to building on this number going forward and further spreading the chemistry gospel islandwide,” Kao said.

Source: Taiwan Today (http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=229451&CtNode=413)