This is the August or Second Issue of Volume 5 and the remaining one issue of this volume shall be released by the end of December, 2004. Readers of this issue shall probably be enlightened with the special foreword on "The recent reform of school science curriculum in China" as contributed by Prof. Lingbiao GAO who is the Director of the Institute of Curriculum Studies, South China Normal University and a member of the Expert Working Group on Reform of Basic Education, Ministry of Education, P.R. China. Although the full article is written in China, there is an executive summary for providing a concise but comprehensive coverage on the key foci and trends of changes on China's reform of science education.

In the Academic Articles section, there is an article on fostering student creativity through some science learning activities as contributed by a Hong Kong expert on creativity education. Equally interesting, we have in the Exemplary Teaching Methods section another article on creative teaching approach for measuring height as co-authored by a school teacher and a museum researcher in Taiwan. The latter section also contains another article on The exemplar of Science Day activity on "Electricity and Living" (Primary 4) as contributed by another two Hong Kong science educators.

In the General Articles and Multimedia Resources section, there is a wide variety of articles published on different themes including high school entrance examination questions in China, a Science, Technology and Society report on IR thermometer applications in schools, an example on the interplay of Physics and Mathematics, a riddle about the World Year of Physics and alternative strategies for assessing primary science learning. The pdf version of articles and embedded multimedia resources in all sections are available for downloading in our Download section.

Finally, we would like to express our sincere thanks to the 14 external referees and all members of our Editorial Board who have carefully and critically reviewed those manuscripts considered for publication in this issue. Thanks are also due to all persons who have contributed articles in this issue and to all research assistants and colleagues in the HKIEd Science Department who offered their kind assistance in developing and promoting this online periodical. The Manhattan Press (H.K.) Ltd. of SNP Panpac (H.K.) Ltd. is specially thanked for their kindness in offering sponsorship to support the continual publication of this online journal.