The Children and Youth Science Center (CYSC) of the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) and the China Association of Children’s Science Instructors (CACSI) launched a special science and technology education programme on June 10 in Ruijin City of Jiangxi Province, China.
The themes include “forging ahead on the Long March”, “lighting up S&T curiosity” and “young people pursuing their dreams”. The programme aims to send science and technology education resources to 100 counties and 1,000 schools in 11 provinces and autonomous regions through both online and offline services in 6 months.
Many politicians, experts, academicians as well as more than 300 high school and primary school teachers and students attended the launching ceremony. More than 1,000 schools in 11 provinces and autonomous regions organised teachers and students to watch the launching ceremony and listen to the masters’ reports through live streaming platforms simultaneously.
Teenagers were invited to participate in practice activities with themes of Artificial Intelligence (AI), red boat model, lunar rover model and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) to get a better understanding of science and technology, and the experience could guide them to learn more scientific knowledge and get better engaged with the nation’s scientific and technological undertakings. Then, the scientific and technological professionals and teenagers recited a poem about a century dream of science and technology in China.
After the launching ceremony, a chief designer of the Long March rocket series and academician delivered a popular science report entitled “Long March rocket and China’s aerospace science” for teenagers. He described the development of the Long March rocket series and the great journey of China’s space industry, which had inspired a warm response of the participating students.
As reported by OpenGov Asia, China launched the core capsule which is tasked with transporting the 22.5-ton capsule to a low-Earth orbit about 400 kilometres above the land to place the first piece of China’s space station. This is the biggest and heaviest spacecraft China has ever constructed. The craft’s weight equals that of 15 ordinary-sized cars combined.
The space station will be made the best use of to advance space science, technology and application. scientists will be able to use the facility’s unique environment to perform mutation breeding, produce special medicines and create new materials, thus generating scientific, technological and economic benefits.
Another academician also delivered a popular science report entitled “understanding our universe” which embarked the participating students on a journey to explore the mysterious universe in simple words.
The programme is expected to drive local governments to set up science education bases and voluntary science education service teams in rural areas to help solve problems of imbalance and inadequacy of science education resources and consolidate poverty alleviation achievements with rural revitalisation.
According to a page, China aims to make science and technology education a priority for economic and social development with education as the basis. Therefore, the country will speed up the translation of scientific and technological advances into practical productive forces, enhance the scientific and cultural quality of the whole nation, make economic construction rely on scientific and technological progress and enhance the quality of labourers and quicken the pace of building China into a powerful and prosperous country.
China has been focusing on improving its people’s education in science and technology, including popularising digital skills, as reported by OpenGov Asia. The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MOHRSS) recently released a plan to increase digital skill education and training to the public to help more people reap the promise of digital development.
Digital capacity refers to solving problems by using digital technologies and relevant tools. He said that an all-people digital skill education and training activity can help promote industrial digitalisation and digital industrialisation. It will make consumers more capable of using more kinds of products and able to experience better digital services.