August 7, 2013

Today is the third day of my science camp trip. This morning, Professor Yuen Ron Shen was giving a lecture on the “Mysteries of Water and Ice”. He told all the students that although water is one of the most studied substances on the planet, there are still much mysteries to water. The study of of water is very important because water is an essential substance to life. Water takes 60% of human body’s volume, transports nutrients, maintains homeostasis, eliminates wastes, and helps metabolic reactions. In addition, no other liquids are commonly found in all three phases and have high surface tension. After his 90 minutes lecture, another 90 minutes were given to the students to ask questions. Only the best questions that are approved by the judges can be asked. I write a few questions to the approval panel. However, I never hear any of my questions is approved. I guess my questions are not thoughtful enough and should try harder on the next lecture. After the lunch, the field trip begins. The destination of our trip is the shenmu region. Students are separated into 12 groups of 13. Each group has a guide, talking about all the plants that we see as we move toward shenmu. The guide teaches us to distinguish gainuwai from taro. This is really important because gainuwai is poisonous. After half an hour of our trip, we finally see many trees that are taller than normal trees in front of us. We have finally reached the shenmu region. The quality of the air is really good with the phytoncid produced by the trees. There is a sky bridge where people can walk at the height equivalent to the tree top of a shenmu. Everything seem so small below us. Although this should be enjoyable, I am afraid of height. I only dare to look down a few times, other time I was just looking at the tree top next to me. After the sky bridge, we went to see the eldest tree on the mountain. It was believed to be 3,000 years old. I hope that the next time I come I can still see it alive.