The 1st APEC Youth Leadership Camp for the Science Gifted
The 1st APEC Youth Leadership Camp for the Science Gifted, an APEC-Funded Project under the Industrial Science and Technology Working Group, took place in Busan, Korea from August 16th to 26th. Held at the Busan Science Academy the camp had the objective of enhancing human resources in APEC economies, reducing the technological gap between APEC countries, and promoting increased prosperity and progress within the APEC arena. The camp had a 10 day program that focused on helping some of the brightest minds from around the region navigate their way through the depths of science and technology by means of innovative, interactive, and challenging classes, field trips, group assignments, and cyber educational tools.
This camp brought students and educators from 10 different countries together under the objective of enhancing scientific knowledge and skills through new educational means using cyber education and creative on-site experiments. The camp consisted of three main groups; discovery, explorer, and fusion, from elementary school, middle school, and high school respectively. 272 students from Brunei, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Chinese Taipei, Thailand, and the Republic of Korea, along with over 40 educators from Canada, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam and the aforementioned countries participated in the camp.
Each day of the camp had of a robust schedule, including field trips to places such as the Science and Engineering departments of Kyungnam University and Busan National University, the Medical Center of Dong-A University, Korean Air, Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction, the Yangsan natural dye factory, and the Naval Academy. The group activities included building solar boats (discovery and explorer group), solar cars (fusion group), and bridges (fusion group), with a solar boat and solar car race taking place on the last day of camp activities. The aim of the lectures and field trips was to help students approach the field of science and technology in an innovative and pro-active. Dr. Kwan Rim, Chairman of the Advanced Institute of Technology and one of the invited speakers said that this was intended to help the students become leaders in "surfing the wave of knowledge-driven change."
The young scientists participating in the camp were selected through preliminary national science camps and by recommendation from gifted education research institutes. These future leaders in the field of science and technology spent 10 days of not only learning scientific knowledge, but also of learning about the many questions and tasks that are left for them to resolve in the future, as scientists at the forefront of change and progress. By sharing ideas and working together, the participating students from the 10 APEC economies were not only able to enhance their scientific knowledge, but also their cultural and social knowledge, leading to the creation of invaluable trans-border friendships and networks. It is hoped that the APEC Youth Leadership Camp for the Science Gifted has opened up various new and lasting channels of communication for the future leaders of the Asia Pacific region.
It is now hoped that the camp will become an annual event serving as a forum to train future leaders and enhance cooperation among APEC economies.
Further details on the programs and activities of the camp, visit the official website for the 1st APEC Youth Leadership Camp for the Science Gifted at www.apeccamp.com.