Not only should we start with children, but also guide and cultivate scientific interests in Xuelin's essays
The 2023 Pujiang Innovation Forum will discuss from multiple perspectives around the "open innovation ecosystem", including mentioning the mutual promotion relationship between technological innovation and scientific popularization, and calling for "high-quality and rich content and enjoyable forms to stimulate the interest of young people in science and exploring the unknown, and promote the improvement of the scientific literacy of the whole population.".
Learning Science Well: Building a Professional Foundation for Science Communication——
The guidance and cultivation of scientific interests should start from childhood. We should consciously educate and guide students to learn scientific knowledge well, stimulate curiosity, imagination, and curiosity, and create a strong atmosphere of "learning science, loving science, and using science".
The addition of science education requires joint efforts both inside and outside the classroom. Relying on the "social classroom", the educational concept of project-based teaching and interdisciplinary comprehensive practical ability cultivation has gradually become a reality, from online open courses and scientific research activities to visiting science popularization education bases and high-tech enterprises.
In the higher education stage, efforts can be made to cultivate top-notch innovative talents through the "Top notch Plan" and "Strong Foundation Plan", and to select outstanding students with solid professional skills and a strong interest in science popularization from them. Efforts should be made to accumulate the motivation for scientific research to serve the country and cultivate a strong sense of patriotism; Cultivate the ability to conduct scientific research and stimulate enthusiasm for scientific and technological innovation; Enhance the effectiveness of scientific communication, promote scientific spirit, and make universities a "talent pool" for technological innovation and a "reservoir" for science popularization reserve talents.
Science popularization writer Ye Yonglie participated in the writing of "100000 Whys" during his studies in the Department of Chemistry at Peking University. He published his first collection of scientific sketches, "A Family of Carbon," and completed the manuscript writing of the popular novella "Little Smart Roaming the Future.". The compilation of the fifth and sixth editions of "One Hundred Thousand Whys" was also actively participated by a group of college students.
Writing Science Well: Providing Rich Content for Science Communication——
Without high-quality popular science content, scientific communication will become a cooking pot without rice. We need to deepen supply side reform, promote innovation and improvement in science popularization content, forms, and means, and enhance the knowledge content of science popularization.
The Shanghai University Science Popularization and Creation Training Class has been going on for 15 years, dedicated to exploring and cultivating college students who are interested in science popularization and creation, helping everyone write scientific "achievements" and "laws" well, and building a bridge from "learning science" to "writing science".
In today's advocacy of hierarchical classification of popular science content, it is necessary to encourage frontline scientific and technological workers to write "meta science popularization" well, become "interpreters" of scientific knowledge, popularize cutting-edge scientific and technological achievements, and also encourage and support popular science writers, editors, journalists, and others to be brave enough to create secondary works and be good "carriers" of scientific knowledge.
Science popularization is the responsibility of scientists. Many well-known scientists have written popular science books, such as Fabre's "Insects", Einstein's co authored "The Evolution of Physics", Schr ö dinger's "What is Life", Gamoff's "From One to Infinity", and Hawking's "A Brief History of Time". In China, there are also 107 academicians and 71 experts collectively writing and editing the "Academician Science Popularization Series". The scientific thinking and scientific spirit conveyed by these popular science books have influenced and inspired generations of young people to pursue truth and climb new heights.
The other layer of meaning of "hierarchical classification" specifically refers to the output objects and forms of "downstream" that determine the creative content of "midstream". In the new situation, it is necessary to tailor the knowledge structure and practical needs of different age groups or occupational audiences for parent-child science popularization, preschool science popularization, youth science popularization, as well as farmer science popularization, industrial worker science popularization, white-collar science popularization, and civil servant science popularization.
At the same time, according to the output form of popular science, create picture books, lesson plans, video scripts or stage scripts, design posters, exhibition aids, fun experiments or activity plans, and truly bring scientific knowledge to life.
Speaking Science Well: Exploring Multiple Outputs for Scientific Communication——
If popular science content wants to "gather fans" and "attract attention", it is necessary to be good at achieving diversified output through diverse presentation forms, and to "speak" the "written" scientific knowledge, so as to "ignite" the "living" scientific knowledge.
In Shanghai, retired professor Wu Yuren from Tongji University used the online name "Wu Laolao, who doesn't answer questions," to popularize physics knowledge on multiple self media platforms. At present, her Tiktok account has 5 million fans, 1.6 million fans in Station B, 990000 fans in Sina Weibo and 830000 fans in Xiaohongshu.
The role of social groups in the transition of scientific knowledge from one-way output to multidimensional interaction should not be underestimated. The Science Minghang Society, a public welfare organization for teachers and students at East China Normal University, has been established for over 10 years. Its members have been engaged in science popularization creation for a long time, and have successively published science popularization books such as "100000 Cold Knowledge · Magic Human Body User Manual", "The Secret of Bacteria", and "100000 Why Children Love to Ask". They have also published more than 200 science popularization articles.
In recent years, clubs have attempted to transform their creative achievements into popular science courses and technological activities. From "the birds and elves around us", "the arms race between humans and pathogens" to "one leaf, one world" and "survival on deserted islands", nearly a hundred science popularization courses and activities have been delivered to Shanghai's love summer care classes and community schools.
In fact, the development of various new forms of communication such as science popularization explanation competitions, science exhibitions, and science talk shows, as well as the development of science popularization activities with stronger interactivity, better experience, and more sticky scientific knowledge, cannot be separated from the collective efforts of various science popularization education bases, science education training institutions, and technology enterprises. In terms of diversified output in scientific communication, it is necessary to create an effective mechanism of "everyone gathers firewood and flames high".
In the process of building the entire chain of scientific communication through "learning, writing, and speaking", each link should establish the concept of "popularizing science", uphold the goal of "improving the scientific literacy of citizens", popularize scientific and technological knowledge, promote scientific spirit, disseminate scientific ideas, and advocate scientific methods, so that everyone not only understands scientific knowledge, but also masters the research process and methods of science, and can better think about the impact of science and technology on society and individuals.
Therefore, it is necessary to focus on bridging the key points of each link, establish a mechanism from "learning" to "writing", and from "writing" to "speaking", to ensure the smooth and unobstructed scientific communication link of "learning, writing, and speaking". By innovating the content, form, and means of science popularization, enhancing its expressive, attractive, and infectious power, and effectively enhancing the effectiveness of scientific communication, we will safeguard the "over 15% of Chinese citizens possessing scientific literacy" during the 14th Five Year Plan period, and enhance the quality and empowerment of "strengthening national science popularization capacity construction, accelerating the realization of high-level scientific and technological self-reliance, and comprehensively promoting the construction of a world science and technology power.".