Common Science Experience - Science Foundation Courses
Two Science Foundation courses are offered as compulsory courses in the 4-year BSc curriculum to give students a common science experience and prepare them with sufficient background to pursue any of the majors in the 6901 programme. The objectives of the science foundation courses are (1) to ensure all students in the BSc programme have acquired by the end of the first year a certain level of competence in the core sciences and the ability to reason in logical and quantitative manners, (2) to give students a holistic view of the science, including the history of scientific developments, the scientific inquiry method, and the nature of the science disciplines, and (3) to provide students with the opportunity to expose to different science subjects before they commit to a particular major of study.
SCNC1111 Scientific Method and Reasoning (6 credits)
Course Objectives:
The objectives are to give students a holistic view of the science discipline in terms of its nature, concepts and impact on civilization and society; to equip students with basic skills of logical and quantitative reasoning; and to introduce to students mathematical and statistical methods for science studies and research.
SCNC1112 Fundamentals of Modern Science (6 credits)
Course Objectives:
This course aims to provide students an overview of the giant web of knowledge that makes up science. This course adopts an integrated approach and encompasses physics, astronomy, earth sciences, chemistry, and biology, and focuses on the general principles and unifying concepts of science used in various disciplines to describe the diverse phenomena and objects in the natural world. The fundamental laws of each discipline, the historical developments and the modern frontiers, and the interconnectedness of different science disciplines will be introduced and highlighted.
Hear from our students about the courses (1st semester 2012-13)
SCNC1111
- - "The teacher is able to stimulate my thinkings about this course and provide adequate examples in our lives to facilitate his teachings."
- - "Many practical examples are used to illustrate the key concepts. The contents of teaching are well organized."
- - "Different interesting mathematical topics are introduced to students."
- - "Basic histories and developments of science including the methodology and different mathematical/statistical topics are introduced in the course that can give students a brief idea of the respective applications in their own science subjects."
- - "Cover topics that are useful to my future studies."
- - "Good examples to illustrate theories and applications."
- - "The course teaches everything about science, from the smallest scale to largest. And the tutorial also teaches me things I have ignored when learning science before."
SCNC1112
- - "Very inspiring and can give detailed information about the topics taught. Very nice and lively lectures are given."
- - "It covers a large variety of science topics and strengthens my fundamentals in science."
- - "The best things about the course are the processes from the smallest to the greatest of the universe. Such a journey from small to big is amazing."
- - "This course is fantastic! It tells me about all kinds of science knowledge, and it’s really interesting! More importantly, we learn a lot about the science method, and thus we can study science on our own later."
- - "This course covers a lot of aspects in different field of science. I really appreciate that since this can make me aware of things which I have not pay attention on before. The stories of scientists are really interesting."
- - "Lots of basic ideas about many disciplines. Know more about the interrelationship between disciplines."
Introduction by Professor Sun Kwok
Books
