This summer (2024), NPUST cooperated with its friendly Neipu neighbor, Taian Elementary School, to hold a series of summer camps every morning from July 1st to 24th at the elementary school campus. A team of teachers and students from NPUST, including Vice President Wen-Ling Shih, Professor Shao-Yu Peng, Associate Professor Wei-Ting Chao, Associate Professor Hsiu-Tsu Chen, and Researcher Wan-Lin Cheng instructed 20 courses during the camps, covering such feilds as scientific agriculture, biotechnology, food and agriculture education, and fashion design.
The team was brought together as part of the university social responsibility (USR) practice plan entitled “Revitalizing and Optimizing the Makatao Healthy Agricultural Industry”, which is headed up by NPUST’s Vice President for Administration, Wen-Ling Shih. Shih ran the first leg of the series, kicking things off on July 1st at 8:00 am with an activity that taught students to use essential oils to make handmade soaps. Through the experience, the children learned about agricultural science and technology while also integrating and accentuating various aspects of Makatao tribal culture. Through team work, the children cultivated problem solving skills and developed a healthy spirit of competitiveness to help them advance in the future.
Shih said that her cross-disciplinary team of teachers and students from NPUST include members of the Department of Biotechnology, the Bachelor Program in Scientific Agriculture, the Department of Tropical Agriculture and International Cooperation, the Department of Animal Science, the Department of Plant Industry, the Department of Hotel and Restaurant Management, the Department of Fashion Design and Management, and the General Research Service Center.
The team put together a rich set of courses for the students, covering drone design, Makatao culture, Hakka history, paper art, laying hen management, container gardening, snake specimen preparation and more! Through the teachers’ explanations and the hands-on learning, students got a feeling for how to apply science and technology to life.
NPUST’s dedication to the promotion of a low-carbon and sustainable campus environment has won it the title of “green university” for ten consecutive years. Adding to this, the university attaches great importance to university social responsibility (USR), and actively encourages its teachers and students to cooperate with local communities, government organizations, schools, NGOs, associations and other groups to take their knowledge out of the campus and use it to bring attention to public affairs and become a partner to the local community.
