Beijing News (reporter Su Ji) On February 21, on the first day of the opening of primary and secondary schools in Beijing, Beijing Dongzhimen Middle School held a opening ceremony with the theme of "Youth Forever Wonderful, Together to the Future" to celebrate the successful conclusion of the Winter Olympics and welcome the arrival of the new semester. At the opening ceremony of the school on the same day, the teachers and students of Dongzhimen Middle School also welcomed the "Space Seed" back to the campus.
Teachers and students welcome the "Space Seed" back to campus. Photo: Beijing Dongzhimen Middle School
As a "youth aerospace breeding science and technology innovation demonstration school", last year, Dongzhimen Middle School launched a new round of space mutagenesis experimental project carrying application, selected sunflower as the school flower, after several rounds of strict screening, finally 2.6 grams of sunflower seeds followed the Shenzhou XII manned spacecraft to travel in space.
Why choose sunflowers as school flowers? Kong Xiangkun, director of the extracurricular office of Dongzhimen Middle School, introduced that the sunflower means vigorous vitality, optimism and bravery, self-improvement and prosperity. "Just like today's youth, full of youthful life breath and fresh life force."
At the opening ceremony, the young actors of the school repertory theatre choreographed the play "Space Seed", which performed the space journey of the seed. According to reports, this batch of sunflower seeds was launched on April 29, 2021, and then the astronauts transferred the experimental samples carried in the core module from the core module to the return module of the Shenzhou XII manned spacecraft, and the return capsule was successfully recovered at the Dongfeng landing field in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The sunflower seeds on board this time have been in orbit for the first time for 141 days, and the dose of cosmic ray radiation and the degree of stress of the space environment are different from the past, which is a valuable research material for space biology.
The young actors of the school repertory theater performed the play "Space Seeds". Photo: Beijing Dongzhimen Middle School
Yang Aihui, assistant principal of Dongzhimen Middle School, introduced that the school has a biological farm club, which aims to guide students to use modern technology and equipment to engage in colorful agricultural production activities, and at the same time, the school's greenhouse can achieve fully automated management, accurate temperature control, humidity control, fertilizer control. Using the space seeds they carried, the students of the club have successfully planted crops such as lettuce, fast rape, rapeseed, small tomatoes, eggplant, and pumpkin in the greenhouse.
From sowing and sprouting to transplanting seedlings to picking and harvesting, the students used soilless cultivation techniques to carry out refined field management. "In the process of weeding, loosening soil, erecting frames, observing, recording, taking pictures, and tasting fruits, I not only learned a lot of agronomical knowledge, experienced the joy of planting and the happiness of harvesting, but also cultivated patriotic feelings and stimulated the feelings of loving the motherland's aerospace industry and biotechnology." Yang Aihui said.
It is reported that this semester, Dongzhimen Middle School will also launch the school flower dissemination plan, including sunflower plant cultivation and display activities, sunflower innovation experiment evaluation activities, school flower literary and creative works collection activities and sunflower theme science fiction painting creation activities. Through these activities, the follow-up research of space breeding application experiments will be further promoted.
Reporter Su Ji Editor Miao Chenxia Proofreader Xue Jingning