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High schoolers share knowledge at LAU

LAU’s 11th Annual Science and Arts Fair presented the work of talented young students.


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Students demonstrate an "alarm bed" that wakes sleepers with various degrees of annoyance that increase with time spent in bed.


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Paintings and drawings displayed in the Rima Hourani Exhibition.


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Inspired by the traffic jam they encountered on a field trip to southern Lebanon, these students came up with an automatic road system that shifted an extra lane to the side with the most traffic.


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Solar-powered remote-controlled car race.


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Students watch as the solar car is tested on the Byblos campus.


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Students presented a traffic light system that adjusts itself to traffic and forces cars to stop at a red light.


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Theater performance.


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Dance competition.

Click on any photo above to view all eight images

Eleven years ago, when the first annual Science and Arts Fair was held at LAU, 180 students from 11 Lebanese high schools took part. The participation rate has jumped to around 870 students from 40 schools at this year’s event, held May 7–8 on LAU’s Byblos campus.

The number of activities has also grown over the years, according to Dr. Mars Semaan, Dean of Students, Byblos.

This year, the program included a new computer science competition, which awarded financial prizes to the top three winners.

One of the highlights of this year’s fair was a solar car, built over the past few weeks by a team of LAU and high school students supervised by LAU professors Barbar Akle and Brigitte Wex.

On the first day, students displayed some other science projects.

“The only rule was to be imaginative,” said Semaan. And imaginative they were. They came up with projects from a bed with an in-built alarm that used various levels of annoyance to awaken snoozers, to elaborate systems of traffic jam and stoplights that could help ease Lebanon’s ailing congestion.

The following day, students showcased their arts projects, including drawings, paintings, photographs and sculptures, in the Rima Hourani Exhibition Room.

Theater troupes staged sketches and student dancers performed at the Selina Korban Auditorium.

The fair closed with an awards ceremony, during which prizes were distributed to the winners of the various science and arts contests, including the writing competition, in which 382 students had participated on April 4 by submitting short stories, essays, and poems in English, Arabic and French.

The main goal of this event was to give students the opportunity “to see what other students are doing. They learned by observing and they shared knowledge,” said Semaan.

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