CCS Sym. 2010

About the Event

Report on CCS’ s Launching Ceremony and Symposium on “Chemistry and Life” held on 19-20 August 2010 Submitted to UNESCO Jakarta, Indonesia Cc. : UNESCO Phnom Penh A. Introduction One of the Cambodian Chemical Society (CCS)’ s goals is to disseminate new information and knowledge, which are useful and necessary on Chemistry and for the Cambodian chemists through our available ways. CCS’ s Symposium provided an opportunity for public education and awareness in issues that affect the lives of all Cambodian people, especially Chemical Teachers. In response to the above goal, CCS, with the supporting budget from UNESCO Jakarta, has organized a two-day Symposium and its Launching Ceremony at Pre-School Teacher Training Center, in Phnom Penh City, which was taken place on 19-20 August 2010. Chemistry teachers from all of the Phnom Penh public high schools and universities were encouraged to participate the event. The forum had provided the knowledge related to the “ Chemistry and Life”, which was very important for their works and for people’s daily life. There were 207 participants (over the expected number 100) attended the Symposium. Those were composed of high school chemical teachers, university lecturers, government officials from related institutions such as Royal Academy of Cambodia, CAMCONTROL (Ministry of Commerce),…, representatives from JICA, ONESCO Cambodia, CEDAC, NGOs, and media. (Please see the annex 1: list of participants) B. Preparatory Activities During the weeks leading up to the Symposium, the CCS’ s Executive Members had prepared and sent: - the invitation letters to the Department of Education, Youth and Sport of Phnom Penh Municipality asking permission to invite teachers from all high schools in Phnom Penh City, - the invitation letters to national and international guests speakers; and arranged the venue for the Symposium. In the days leading up the Symposium, CCS’ s staffs prepared reading materials’ packs for the Launching and Symposium participants. C. The Symposium The CCS’ s Launching and Symposium was successfully held on August 19-20, 2010 at Pre- School Teachers Training Center, Phnom Penh City. There were 207 participants attended ( 99 women and 108 men), which consisted of 132 high school teachers, 47 universities lecturers, 6 representatives from the governmental institutions, 4 international guests, and 18 medias. I- Launching Ceremony The Ceremony started by the welcome speech of Dr. Sieng Huy, Executive Director of CCS. She described the history of establishing of Cambodian Chemical Society and its Organizational Management Structure. Next, the remarks delivered by H.E. Dr. Neth Barom, Chairman of the Board of Directors of CCS on the purpose of the creation of this professional society, its vision, mission, goals, and the significance towards members, Cambodians, and S&T development. The ceremony has the honor to get the participation of the representative from the Federation of Asian Chemical Society and Korean Chemical Society, Dr. Prof. Kyung Byung Yoon. He raised about the experiences in operating such kind of professional Society and also presented the Plaque of appreciation and cooperation to the Cambodian Chemical Society. The representative of UNESCO Cambodia, Mr. Teruo Jinnai mentioned that UNESCO always support the activities for increasing the Science and Technology in Cambodia such as support to further training workshop on food safety to Journalists for their information to continue and disseminate it to the public and film showing at ITC etc… After the opening speech of H.E. Dr. Khlot Thyda, President of the Royal Academy of Cambodia and Adviser to Samdech Mohasenapadei Decho Hun Sen, Prime Minister of Cambodia, Dr Sieng Huy, Executive Director of CCS had presented a draft of CCS’ s Annual Work Plan starting from September 2010 to August 2011 to the participants for discussion and comments before the adoption. After the discussion all participants has approved on the CCS’ s Work Plan and its budget estimation. (Please see the annex 2: CCS’ s Work Plan) The process of member‘s registration is also conducted in parallel. Up to that day CCS has 81 full members, mostly are chemists. II- Symposium a) The Presentations There were 8 presentations on the different topics as following: 1- “Organization of nanobeads into 1D and 2D structures on substrates by forced dry manual assembly ”, by Prof. Kyung Byung YOON, Representative of Korean Chemical Society and Dean of Natural Science Faculty, Sogang University, Republic of Korea; 2- “Growth and toxin production of cyanobacterium microcystis aeruginsoa and different light intensity “, by Mr. Hul Sengheng, Lecturer of Department of Chemistry, Institute of Technology Cambodia; 3- “ Microbio Contamination of raw pork”, by Mr. Chhrun Rithy, Lecturer of Royal University of Argricuture; 4-“ Using chemical substances in agricultural sector and its impact”, by Mr. Keam Makarady, Program Manager of CEDAC ; 5- “Identification of residual chemical substances in food”, by Dr. Chek Sotha, Deputy Director of Department of Chemistry & Food, Institute of Sciences & Technology, Royal Academy of Cambodia; 6- “Alcohol and health”, by Mr. Heng Savoeun, Lecturer of Department of Chemistry, Royal University of Phnom Penh; 7- “Food safety”, by Mr. Pich Chan, Vice-Director of Department of Technical Affairs and Public Relation, CAMCONTROL, Ministry of Commerce; 8- “ What are the weaknesses of science education in Cambodian secondary schools ?”, by Mr. Set Seng, Lecturer of National Institute of Education. After each presentation, questions and answers opportunity had been provided between participants and presenters. b) Reporting Activity A report of the Symposium, both in Khmer and English, will be available in CCS’ s Bulletin No.2 (December, 2010). The Symposium was briefly broadcasted on three national television stations (CTN, Bayon and Apsara TV stations) and a number of Khmer radio stations. Some of local newspapers had also highlighted the CCS’ s Symposium contents too. c) Impact The Creation of Cambodian Chemical Society and its Symposium on “Chemistry and Life” has been interested by many people, Radio and TV reporters, Journalists and the public. They were much interested on the food safety and the impact of the presence of hazardous chemical substances on foods. So many reporters both Radio and TV asked for interviewing with CCS’ s Executive Director. Every presentation of national and international presenters was interested all audience. They suggested that CCS should organize more workshops/conferences related to the themes of food safety, methodology for teaching chemistry according to the new curriculum and textbooks, on how to conduct the experiments in chemistry laboratories, environmental and food chemistry, and pesticides etc. d) Evaluation The evaluation was conducted at the end of the Symposium. The result of this evaluation is as following: (60 responders) Note: 1- not satisfied, 2- somewhat not satisfied, 3- no idea, 4- somewhat satisfied, 5- very satisfied. 1 Remark on the general operation 1 % 2 % 3 % 4 % 5 % a. General organizing of the symposium 0.0 3.0 1.8 11.7 20.4 b. Location 0.6 3.30 3.9 14.4 12.6 c. Snack 0.0 0.60 1.5 16.2 16.6 d. Lunches 0.0 0.0 1.8 13.5 17.7 2 Remark on the presentations a. Topics and explanations 0.3 1.9 0.3 9.6 21.9 b. Materials and documents 2.1 2.7 1.5 13.8 13.8 c. What topics do you want to have for next workshop? 3 Recommendation and suggestions c. What topics do you want to have for next workshop? The next workshop topics are: - New 10, 11 and 12 grade chemistry curriculum and the use of laboratory equipments - Health and Pesticides - New chemical researches - Food production and processing - Environmental Chemistry, Chemistry Education and Medicinal Chemistry - Chemistry Education at secondary school - Environment and its impact - How to become a good chemists? - How to create and use Email and Internet - The effect of Phyto-medicine and chemical medicine - Global warming - Natural and chemical fertilizer production - Research and methodology on Chemistry - Method to manage the laboratory work and safety - How to write the research proposal? - How to make student admire to study chemistry? 3- Recommendations and suggestions The Participants raised a series of recommendation and suggestions as following: - CCS should help to contact with the Ministry of Education and Sports to provide orientation training course on new curriculum - CCS should observe on the issue of Food Safety and provide comment to the authority - Should provide training on methodology in teaching chemistry and laboratory practice to secondary school teacher - Should have measure on the issue of using dangerous pesticides - Should disseminate the research project and its results to the CCS’s members - The Ministry of health should produce spot video on the impact of the dangerous chemical substances and widely disseminate it - Should open Master and Ph.D classes in Chemistry as possible - Should find more better location for symposium - Should provide opportunity to the provincial teachers to attend the symposium. ¬¬¬¬