LIYSF Summary, Xichen Jiang, Peking University, China Participant

On July 24^th 2013, the London International Youth Science Forum (LIYSF) began at Imperial College London. Fortunately, as the only representative of LIYSF from Hunan, I was privileged enough to represent China Association for Science and Technology in this great science forum.

      

In this forum, there were a lot of lectures; we soon became a large group of friends, had a great number of parties, and also lively discussions.

    

The opening ceremony was held on July 25th, which was great fun and an insight into where the participants were from!

Holding the flag for China at the LIYSF opening ceremony

After the opening ceremony, we had a few days of lectures. Lectures were undoubtedly the most important part of LIYSF. I liked the lectures because they were timely, gave an in depth detailed description of a specific area of science, and offered the opportunity for participants to question the lecturers on their research areas.

Professor Nancy Papalopulu at LIYSF

LIYSF lectures were divided into mandatory and optional lectures. Speakers for the mandatory lectures talked about their field of expertise, bringing it to life with cutting edge science and recent advances. The optional lectures were a little less formal, where a variety of doctors, teachers, scientists, as well as ex-LIYSFers discussed their areas of research. In all cases, lecture content varied, and aspects from biology, anthropology, chemistry, materials science, physics, finance, mathematics and psychology were touched upon.

In addition to lectures and speeches, we had a student poster ‘bazaar’ evening, as well as a student debate. Although I’m a student who has just finished high school, I still took part in some of these discussions. In this activity, I found everyone's posters are very personal, as much as possible to communicate science to a wide variety of audiences.

    

In addition to activities in Imperial College London, my favorite trip was to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. The real harmony between man and nature was evident. All plants here were well protected, and they were not at risk from degradation or deforestation. It was a great insight into plant science, as well as a great day out on the beautiful summer afternoon!

Visit to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew

Amongst the scientific programme, there were also many social events for us as participants. We enjoyed the treasure hunt, welcome party, and international cabaret, and ‘traditions of home’ performances. We performed a Jiangsu traditional song "Jasmine", and in the end of the program we also performed a fun dance of "Dolly Song", which everyone seemed to enjoy!

Performance at the International Cabaret!

As well as this, I visited Stonehenge and Salisbury, Tower Bridge, Kensington Gardens, the British Museum, Big Ben, and Oxford. In just 15 days, we visited so many places, made so many different friends from all around the world, met wonderful professors and got a great insight into multidisciplinary science.

Thank you for this wonderful experience at LIYSF, this is all I want to say. Thank you all, I will never forget my time here at the forum!