HKU holds Science and Art Crossover Programme for secondary students

Over 100 junior secondary students participated in a one-day workshop held by the Faculty of Science of the University of Hong Kong on January 18 (Saturday) to learn about the intertwining possibilities between Science and Art.

The artworks of the students are now on exhibition in Chi Wah Learning Commons of the University of Hong Kong which will last until February 17 (Monday). The artworks will be shown at the Central MTR Station in April.

At its second year, the crossover programme introduced science theories to the students with an even greater variety of visualised artworks.

The programme commenced with a series of lectures examining the science perspective behind natural patterns, coffee art, paper folding and animations before the students began putting their new knowledge at work. The molecular gastronomy lecture particularly grasped the students’ interest with the demonstration of 3D coffee art.

“With my background in food science, coffee art came into my mind first when speaking of blending Science and Art,” said Dr Jessica Leung, Lecturer from the Faculty of Science who explained how milk foams are formed in her lecture. “Our demonstrating barista told me that he learnt coffee art himself through trial and error, and I think that corresponds with the spirit of Science very much.’ She added.

At one of the workshop sessions that followed, students got to try more wonders molecular gastronomy could do to ordinary food. Kristy Tong, a Form Three student, said: “I think this workshop is rewarding as we seldom have the opportunity to learn food science elsewhere.”

But understanding gelification was not the only objective in the workshop. Students had to arrange their freshly made molecular cuisine in a visually appealing manner. “Now I try to shape this Agar-agar Spaghetti into a replica of the painting the Starry Night,” Kristy said as she placed the colourful jelly on the dish with care.

At another workshop, students deployed their creativity to paint different natural mathematical patterns on the canvas. They were taught about the mathematics about the patterns but were left to decide how to paint their masterpieces. “We want to let the students decide how they can relate science to their artistic creativity,” explained Dr Tsing Nam Kiu, Associate Professor from the Department of Mathematics in charge of the workshop. “It may take a long time to see if students can work with our notion of mixing art with science, but at least we see that the students are very focused in their work.” Dr Tsing added.

“I used warm colours to paint some part of this painting of a snowflake to show how global warming may cause things around the world to disappear,” another participant, Form Three student Jenny Chow, explained as she brushed finishing touches of her aspiration on the canvas. “Most of the time we treated science and art too separately and we overlooked the interesting connections between the two. Textbooks should not be the only place we draw science knowledge from, we can try to learn through other ways too.” She added.

Programme Director Dr Benny Ng said he wanted the programme to inspire the students in a way that they could learn to see science in more creative ways and asked the participants to keep their brains running.

For more information about the programme, please contact Programme Director Dr Benny Ng, Faculty of Science, at tel: 39174594；email: ngbenny@hku.hk)