Taiwan’s delegation emerged as the top winner at the seventh International Junior Science Olympiad (IJSO), taking a total of four gold medals and two silver medals and the highest accumulated score.
Taiwan was given “the country winner” award for its outstanding performance at the Olympiad in Nigeria, beating out 34 other participating countries, the Ministry of Education said in a statement on Saturday.
COUNTRY WINNER
A total of 180 students aged 15 or younger took part in this year’s competition.
Among the six Taiwanese participants, Huang Kai-chi (黃凱祺), now in his first year at Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School, collected the most awards. He won a gold medal, “the best theory winner” award, and “the overall winner” award.
Although Huang did not begin to study science until his second year in junior high school, he has shown perseverance in subjects that interest him, said delegation head Lo Pei-hua (羅珮華), an associate researcher in National Taiwan Normal University’s Science Education Center.
EXCELLENCE IN SCIENCE
The IJSO, which test young students in physics, biology, chemistry and other disciplines, is an annual individual and team competition in natural sciences.
Its aim is to promote the pursuit of excellence in science and stimulate gifted students to develop their interests.
Taiwan has participated in the competition since 2004 and has so far collected a total of 35 gold medals, seven silver medals and a bronze medal in the laboratory skills category, six “best theory winner” awards, three “overall winner” awards and three “country winner” awards.
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