Alpha Foundation Making Science Fun for Elementary School Students in Siangshan, Hsinchu

The Alpha Foundation has embraced “mobile communication at the core of its operation” as its mission. The Foundation is continuing to study equality in education in order to bridge the information divide between the city and countryside, and overcome the lack of rural resources. We discovered that student progression at disadvantaged schools was just 30% of urban areas. No additional learning resources were available, further highlighting the divide between the rich and poor as well as social inequality.

The Foundation hopes this year to engage under-resourced students in multi-disciplinary learning through a combination of tech know-how and volunteer service. We also hope that the promotion of technology education will help connect them with the rest of the world. Volunteers from Alpha Networks brainstormed together to produce fun and simple communications science experiments based on the company’s own communications expertise. The new education resources will hopefully inspire student interest in learning.

Alpha volunteers traveled to Dahu Elementary School in Siangshan, Hsinchu City. Located in the southern suburbs of Siangshan District, the school is the smallest school in Hsinchu City with just 55 enrolled students. Even though it is located within Hsinchu City limits, the conditions there are similar to rural schools in other parts of Taiwan. The latest program was conducted in a mixed-age format with 28 students from years 1 to 4. We found that the students actively helped each other with the middle grades leading the lower grades during experiments. The students were all lively as well, enthusiastically answering questions and taking part in demonstration experiments. The teachers said that the curriculum not only improved student motivation but also expanded their horizons. They will continue to introduce this program in the future curriculum and it should give the school a significant boost in future science fairs and related competitions.

The Alpha Foundation will continue to fulfill the CSR philosophy by partnering with more institutions, organizations, and other units. We hope to leverage our internal corporate resources and power as well as our expertise in network communications to make a substantive contribution to society.