In order to enhance the quality of those articles published in our online journal and to cater for the needs of teachers in teaching science at their schools, we have recently established an Editorial Review Board whose main functions are

• To review professional or research articles submitted to the APFSLT,
• To offer advice to improve the quality of the APFSLT, and
• To offer help to promote this online journal to wider domain of readers.

This Board consists of two panels, namely Research Panel and Teaching and Learning Panel and we are very glad to have Dr. Gregory THOMAS, Head of the Science Department, Hong Kong Institute of Education agreed to chair the Research Panel. Other members in this Research Panel include Prof. Anges Shook Cheong CHANG (Nanyang Technological University, SINGAPORE), Prof. Chao-Ti HSIUNG (Normal Taipei Teachers' College, TAIWAN), Prof. Jack HOLBROOK (ICASE, CYPRUS), Prof. John LOUGHRAN (Monash University, AUSTRALIA), Prof. Xingkai LUO (Guangxi Normal University, CHINA), Prof. Russell TYTLER (Deakin University, AUSTRALIA) and Dr. Benny H.W. YUNG (University of Hong Kong, HONG KONG). For the Teaching and Learning Panel, we have already got 12 members who are university science educators, school principals or teachers and government officials etc. and they are Prof. Xiao Yong CHEN (East China Normal University, CHINA), Prof. Whei jen CHANG (Feng Chia University, TAIWAN), Dr. Derek Sin-pui CHEUNG (Chinese University of Hong Kong, HONG KONG), Mr. Yuen Tan LAU (Curriculum Development Institute, HONG KONG), Prof. Jingling LIU (Beijing Normal University, CHINA), Dr. Mun Ling LO (Hong Kong Institute of Education, HONG KONG), Dr. Chi Sum MAN (Green Power, HONG KONG), Dr. King Chee PANG (World Wide Fund for Nature Hong Kong, HONG KONG), Miss Ho Yan TAM (TWGHs Wong See Sum Primary School (AM), HONG KONG), Mr. Isaac Pak-hoi TSE (PLK 1983 Board of Directors' College, HONG KONG), Prof. Xiaojun WANG (South China Normal University, CHINA) and Mr. Shek Nin WONG (Aberdeen Technical School, HONG KONG). We are still in the process of inviting more scholars and school teachers to join this Board so that it will have a broad enough representation from different sectors of the society and from different countries or regions around the world.

Returning to the present issue (Volume 4 Issue 1), there are in total 7 articles contributed by 15 different authors who come from Australia, Beijing, Canada, Hong Kong, Shanghai and USA. In the Foreword section, we are very fortunate to have Dr. David ANDERSON, Dr. Gregory P. THOMAS and Dr. Kirsten M. ELLENBOGEN jointly written for us an article called "Learning Science from Experiences in Informal Contexts: The Next Generation of Research". The authors provide a comprehensive review on the current understanding and research development of informal learning and its content is closely related to the so-called "Life-wide Learning" as highly advocated by the recent education reform in Hong Kong. In the Academic Articles section, we got two peer-reviewed research papers on two important aspects of science education - "Teaching and testing about the Nature of Science: problems arising from students' perceptions" (by John LOUGHRAN, Amanda BERRY, Pamela MULHALL and Dick GUNSTONE) and "Junior secondary science teachers' understanding and practice of alternative assessment in Hong Kong" (by May CHENG). In the General Articles and Multimedia Resources section, we have four pieces of articles contributed by some teachers in schools or tertiary institutions. They are "Study on the reform of foundation courses in environmental science and engineering and training for scientific research ability of the students" (by Jingling LIU and Zhifeng YANG), "Environmental education reform in a normal university" (by Yongjie GU, Yun LIU and Ming LI), "Impact on the spirits of humanism brought by the contemporary development of science education in China" (by X.W. ZHANG) and "A secondary two science investigation project - the effects of acid rain on plant growth" (by May Hung CHENG and Hing Lun TSOI).

Finally, we would like to express our sincere thanks to the 14 referees who have carefully and critically reviewed those manuscripts considered for publication in this issue. Starting from this issue, we add an Acknowledgement section to specifically thank for their kind assistance. Thanks are also due to all those who have contributed articles in this issue and to all research assistants and colleagues in the HKIEd Science Department who offered their assistance in developing and promoting this online periodical. Besides, we must thank for a new major sponsor - Modern Educational Research Society Limited who has provided both financial and technical support (in form of homepage design) to us so that we could now have a new and more attractive front page for our online journal.