New Courses in Semester 2, 2011/12

The course will investigate (1)how mass culture, e.g. architecture, food, movies, clothing, are represented in literature; (2)how mass culture influences literary writing; (3)how the relationship of literature and mass culture makes an impact on our life style. 

This course begins with basic literacy in molecular biology. It is divided into three parts. 

• Biology—understanding the molecular biology behind the latest biotechnological advances (e.g., molecular cloning, stem cell, the Human Genome Project, regenerative medicine).
• From Biology to Philosophy – understanding the notions of “nature,” “altering nature,” improving nature,” and “unnatural” from both the biological and philosophical perspectives.
• Philosophical Anthropology – exploring how we can set the moral guidelines so that, via biotechnological intervention of nature, human beings will neither play God nor play slave of nature, but just being human.

In the Web 2.0 age, young people are living in a media saturated world. Their values and social actions are significantly influenced by the media. Media literacy is defined as a life skill which enables young people to critically understand, analyze, use and monitor the media. A social participative approach is adopted in this course. Students are cultivated not only as active and critical media consumers but also as informed and responsible citizens. Positive psychology will also be integrated into the course so that students will be guided how to interpret media messages in a positive way.

This course will introduce the key concepts of the public speaking process and show how to apply them to construct and deliver high quality informative and persuasive speeches. Also, the course will help students assess, critique, and appreciate the speeches of others by teaching them the standards of evaluation that apply to effective public speaking. 

This course begins with basic literacy in molecular biology. It is divided into three parts. 

• Biology—understanding the molecular biology behind the latest biotechnological advances (e.g., molecular cloning, stem cell, the Human Genome Project, regenerative medicine).
• From Biology to Philosophy – understanding the notions of “nature,” “altering nature,” improving nature,” and “unnatural” from both the biological and philosophical perspectives.
• Philosophical Anthropology – exploring how we can set the moral guidelines so that, via biotechnological intervention of nature, human beings will neither play God nor play slave of nature, but just being human.

In this course, specific issues covered will include resources management, food safety, public health, sustainable development, ecotourism, nature conservation and ecological footprint. In order to better illustrate these core issues and their implications on policy making and application of ethical principles, relevant current environmental issues in Hong Kong, China and other countries will be cited as discussion examples.

This course explains how to identify a phony statistic and introduces ways to present data in proper statistical sense. Students will learn the techniques to analyze various quantitative data, to evaluate research studies presented in daily life, and to apply critical thinking skills effectively to their reading, writing, and even learning. Students will gain concepts of sampling, estimation and correlation, which are important assets to their future studies and careers.