Make museums a "second classroom" for teenagers

Students conduct science experiments at the Tibet Museum of Natural Sciences in Lhasa on March 23. Xinhua News Agency

General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "The guidance and cultivation of scientific interest should start from the dolls, so that they can understand more scientific knowledge, master scientific methods, and form a large number of young people with the potential of scientists." "The Nineteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China has made a strategic judgment that socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era, and the realization of the Chinese dream of building a socialist power and realizing the Chinese dream urgently needs to cultivate a large number of scientific and technological innovation talents." Changes in talent demand will inevitably bring about changes in the direction and mode of talent training.

Since its launch, the "Science Popularization into Life" reading group of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference on Education, Science, Health and Sports has been actively participated in by the members, and recently in the offline exchange activities held, some members of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and representatives from all walks of life have conducted in-depth exchanges on the topic of "establishing an effective connection mechanism for scientific education resources inside and outside the school". Excerpts from this issue.

- Editor

Scientific and technological innovation and popularization of science are the two wings of innovation and development. Popularization of science is both an act, a process, and a cause. In its essence, when a professional explains to non-professional people the relevant knowledge of his profession, scientific research results and its latest progress, he is doing science popularization work. In this sense, there is science popularization everywhere in life, science popularization activities are everywhere and everywhere, every professional can be a science popularization worker, and everyone is the object of science popularization. What is popularized by science popularization should be deterministic knowledge, and many of the extracurricular science education resources are non-deterministic and fragmented, which requires the establishment of a scientific and effective articulation and integration mechanism to organically integrate the internal and external science education resources. Museums can do a lot about it in this regard. Let me make three points:

Make good use of the museum's rich scientific and technological education resources. Social education is one of the four most important functions of museums, and scientific and technological education itself is an important part of museum education. Although the museum is a public cultural institution, it not only has rich historical and cultural resources, but also has a very rich scientific and technological education resources. Roughly speaking, there are at least three types of scientific and technological education resources in the museum: the first is scientific and technological cultural relics, such as the National Museum of China's collection of human skulls that empirically underwent craniotomy in ancient China, the 99-9 multiplier table of the decimal system, and the experimental instruments used in the development of modern science and technology, the Shenzhou V recycling parachute, and the first lunar soil obtained by Chinese himself from the moon. The second category is all kinds of cultural relics that contain rich scientific and technological value, such as any cultural relics contain historical value, cultural value, scientific and technological value, aesthetic value and era value, which is reflected in the material of the cultural relics themselves, but also in the design and production process, and also in the social life and natural environment changes reflected in its patterns, which need to be carefully excavated and appreciated. The third category is the scientific and technological education resources presented by the academic research institute of the museum, such as various test instruments and supplies in the restoration of cultural relics, scientific and technological archaeological experimental equipment, equipment and facilities in the operation and maintenance of museums, and three-dimensional data collection devices for cultural relics. In this sense, a museum is a big school, a three-dimensional encyclopedia, and the knowledge here is all knowledge of life. It is sincerely hoped that all sectors of society, especially schools at all levels, will attach great importance to and make full use of the museum's scientific and technological education resources, so that these external resources and on-campus resources can be organically combined and fully played. In fact, the current social education activities of the museum are winning more and more pursuit and participation of the public with their vivid and colorful presentation forms, content design and silent indoctrination effect of moisturizing things, and more and more cultural institutions empower cultural relics resources through scientific and technological means, so that the public can more intuitively feel the scientific and technological value and scientific connotation behind the cultural relics while appreciating the exhibition products, highlighting the characteristics and advantages that other public cultural institutions cannot match. It has become an important supplement and extension of classroom teaching in many primary and secondary schools.

The museum's scientific and cultural products are rich in content and diverse in form, and have good educational effects. The most important public cultural product of the museum is the exhibition, and the core competitiveness is the curatorial ability. The museum promotes scientific and cultural products, which can not only display the beauty of cultural relics through the cultural relics themselves, but also tell the story of scientific and technological development through cultural relics exhibitions, and also allow the audience to bring home the scientific and technological knowledge contained in cultural relics through cultural and creative product development. For example, at the large-scale exhibition held by the National Museum to celebrate the 40th anniversary of reform and opening up, the exhibits reflecting the achievements of manned spaceflight, the display device of the principle of nuclear fusion, and the recent scientific and technological progress are often crowded with audiences, indicating that everyone is very interested in the development of science and technology and is eager to do intuitive and in-depth understanding. The special exhibition "The Power of Science and Technology" currently held at the National Museum is actually a complete exhibition of the general history of Chinese science and technology, using hundreds of scientific and technological objects to talk about the splendid splendor of ancient Chinese science and technology, but also to talk about our uplift and great rejuvenation since the introduction of modern Western science and technology into China, and comprehensively display the history of China's ancient and modern scientific and technological development and the latest scientific and technological achievements; The "'Two Bombs and One Satellite' Spiritual Exhibition" deeply explained the rich connotation of the "Two Bombs and One Satellite" spirit in a combination of pictures and physical objects, and many units specially organized to visit and received good results. The "First Large-Scale Low-speed Reflux Wind Tunnel in New China" placed in the East Area of the Public Space of the Three-Story Platform of the National Museum is the first large-scale wind tunnel in New China designed and built by Qian Xuesen, Zhou Peiyuan and other scientists of the older generation, and the only large wind tunnel that can be used for aircraft test experiments in the 1950s and 1970s. On the other hand, it also reflects the great progress of our scientific and technological development today, which makes people feel a lot of emotions after watching it. Since the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, we have made full use of online platforms and cloud display means to launch a series of "good exhibitions", "good lessons" and "good cultural relics", and held a cloud exhibition of "Forever Dongfanghong - Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Successful Launch of Dongfanghong No. 1 Satellite", making the network an important channel for museums to play their functions, and the transformation of communication technology and virtual reality technology is gradually changing the narrative context of museums, and social audiences can visit museums anytime and anywhere. It can be seen that the history of science and technology, as the interactive evolution of human intelligence to nature, is the most important entry point for the popularization of science and technology, because it is full of a variety of fascinating science and technology stories, and the exhibitions held by museums show that they have an unparalleled unique advantage in explaining this story.

The combination of science and culture is the trend of the times and requires strong support from all sectors of society. Since the emergence of modern science, especially since the Second World War, a very bad tendency has been to make a strict distinction between science and technology and culture, science and technology are science and technology, and culture is culture, as if the two are completely unrelated. In fact, science itself is a culture, and culture as a way of life, including values, ways of thinking, behavior patterns, but also including social norms, discourse systems and interest preferences, science and culture are not only impossible to separate, but should be integrated to the greatest extent possible to develop a correct way of thinking. I once mentioned such a point of view, that is, to realize the Chinese nation's great rejuvenation of the Chinese dream and build a socialist modern power with Chinese characteristics, the most crucial thing is to organically integrate the hard power of science and technology with computing power as the core and the cultural soft power with aesthetic power as the core. Now museums around the world vigorously carry out museum-school cooperation, make full use of museum resources to carry out popular science education, and promote the museum's action into the campus, the main purpose is to integrate the historical, cultural, artistic and scientific and technological education resources owned by the museum, organically combine the off-campus science education resources with the formal education resources in the school, help students get the corresponding multi-faceted knowledge supplement at the appropriate growth stage, and will not be too partial to the shortcomings in the composition of their own knowledge system. Guide them to develop in an all-round way in the process of growth and achieve a sound life.

As a temple of history, culture and art, the museum's cultural presentation form is three-dimensional and multi-level and long-term, and there are corresponding research objects and spaces for teenagers of different ages, which requires us to promote the close connection between the museum curriculum and the science curriculum under the premise of adhering to the law of education, give full play to the advantages of museum collection resources and exhibitions, and cooperate with the different stages and different aspects of school education, strive to stimulate the curiosity and imagination of young people, and enhance scientific interest, innovation awareness and innovation ability. It is necessary to resolutely overcome the phenomenon of separation between science and technology and cultural development, effectively solve the tendency of some museums to emphasize ancient and contemporary, heavy utensils and light connotations, emphasis on display and interpretation, emphasis on aesthetics and light on science, respect students' willingness to study and interest preferences, and establish and improve the scientific docking and long-term cooperation mechanism between schools and museums for the needs of young people at different stages, avoid the cooperation between museums and schools that are "wet over the ground", and strive to provide high-quality cultural products and services. Truly make the museum a "second classroom" for young students.

(This article was originally published in the ninth edition of the People's Political Consultative Conference Daily on April 6, 2022, and the author is Wang Chunfa, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and director of the National Museum of China)

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