On December 17, in the Hongkou Fire and Rescue Station, a "foreign professor" wearing a white coat and goggles on the bridge of his nose was demonstrating various small experiments related to "fire".
On December 18, in the lecture hall of the Zhiyuan Building of Shanghai Gezhi Middle School, this "foreign professor" held up an "Aladdin's magic lamp", and in an instant, the liquid in the Erlenmeyer flask tumbled violently, and white smoke gushed out. When the smoke cleared, he humorously said to the audience, "Is it magical? But I'm not really Aladdin, I'm a chemist." ”
On December 19th, "Professor Yang" came to the First Central Primary School of Jing'an District to give a popular science lecture on "What is Chemical Reaction" to primary school students. From time to time, the exclamations of the students were heard: "It's amazing!", "It's incredible!", "Everything is possible!"
The "Professor Yang" who did the experiment was Dr. Dai Wei, director of the Science Popularization Experimental Center of Beijing University of Chemical Technology, chairman of the Beijing branch of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and vice chairman of the International Committee of the China Industrial Cooperation and Cooperation Society. IT IS NOT DIFFICULT FOR THOSE WHO ARE ATTENTIVE TO NOTICE THAT DR. DAI WEI'S WHITE COAT WEARS A VERY STRIKING INVERTED TRIANGLE BADGE WITH THE INSCRIPTION "UNG HO" (GONGHE) ON IT. During this trip, he was invited to Shanghai to give a series of popular science lectures in his capacity as vice chairman of the International Committee of the China Industrial Cooperation and Cooperation Committee.
"Cast spells according to people", superb performances make people never get tired of watching
From December 17th to December 19th, Dr. Dai Wei's itinerary for popular science lectures in Shanghai was full, from walking into the Hongkou Fire and Rescue Station, a century-old building of Shanghai's internationalist education base, to the special activities of academicians and experts in the "Master Classroom" to Shanghai Gezhi Middle School, and then to entering the First Central Primary School of Jing'an District, a century-old famous school. The staff found that he always arrived at the site of the popular science lecture at least two hours in advance, and made all preparations carefully and meticulously.
In the face of subjects of different ages, Dai Wei's experimental performances are also different. At Gezhi Middle School, he first lit a candle with alcohol disguised as "water", which instantly piqued the students' interest. Subsequently, the grape-flavored Mirinda was transformed into "water", "milk" and "Sprite". Behind the miraculous experiment, he said that this was due to the reduction of 6-valent potassium permanganate to 2-valent under the action of a reducing agent - this is the knowledge of chemistry in secondary school textbooks.
He also pays special attention to the training of scientific thinking. He quoted the editor-in-chief of Nature as saying that "anything in the magazine can be wrong, because technology is constantly advancing" to encourage students to always have a spirit of skepticism and empirical evidence.
In the face of primary school students, Dai Wei's display was more like a "show". Alcohol vapor combustion, steel wool combustion, etc...... One of the most intriguing experiments was when Dr. Dai Wei put roses, bananas, and balloons in liquid nitrogen. These experiments vividly demonstrated the properties of liquid nitrogen to absorb a large amount of heat during vaporization, allowing students to experience the changes of matter at extremely low temperatures, with roses becoming easily crushed, bananas becoming hard, and balloons shrinking smaller.
He was very happy to hear that a fourth-grade student had been able to memorize more than 40 chemical elements, and encouraged the students to be patient and persevere. During the interactive exchange session, some students asked: What kind of literacy should a scientist have? He said that a good scientist should not only learn Xi science, learn Xi English, and mathematics, but also learn to observe.
Alley Spirit, Gung Ho International and Social Services
What is the historical story of the inverted triangle "Gung Ho" badge on Dr. Dai Wei's white coat?
"Gung Ho" is the abbreviation of "industrial cooperatives", and the slogan is "work hard, work together". In 1937, Louis Alley, a friend from New Zealand, Edgar Snow, Helen Snow and some other patriots in China, launched the Gung Ho Movement in Shanghai, organizing unemployed workers and refugees in the shadow of Japan's war of aggression against China to carry out production to save themselves and support the anti-Japanese front, which became the most influential national mass movement in the history of China's cooperative movement.
In 1939, Soong Ching-ling initiated the establishment of the International Committee of the Gung Ho in Hong Kong to solicit overseas aid and support the Gung Ho movement. By the end of 1945, ICCIC had raised tens of millions of dollars worth of international donations and materials from the United States, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore and other countries, making important contributions to supporting the Anti-Japanese War and the ICCIC movement, and was highly praised by Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Ye Ting and other leaders of the Communist Party of China.
Dai Wei said: "Shanghai is the first stop for Louis Alley, an old friend of the Chinese and a great internationalist fighter, to work in China. Louis Alley is my role model, and I hope that through my efforts, I can tell more young people and the public about chemistry. ”
In order to inherit and develop the "Louis Alley Spirit" and the "Work Hard, Work Together" spirit of Gung Ho, the International Committee of the China Industrial Cooperation and Cooperation officially approved the establishment of the "Social Service Working Committee". Chen Yongdi, one of the organizers of this series of activities and vice chairman of the International Committee of ICCIC, said, "It is our efforts to integrate social resources on a larger scale, deepen social services, promote science and technology popularization, rural revitalization, common prosperity, environmental protection, public welfare undertakings and people-to-people exchanges, and better shoulder the responsibility of ICCIC in the new era to serve the new journey of building a modern socialist country in an all-round way." ”
Dr. Dai Wei's "Chemical Reaction" with Shanghai
This is not Dr. Dai's first visit to Shanghai. On August 20 last year, Dr. Dai Wei was invited to attend the opening ceremony of the 2022 Shanghai Science and Technology Festival and participated in the "Scientists Walking the Red Carpet" program. Those who know him well know that Dai Wei often said that he has two hobbies, one is chemistry and the other is China.
This year marks Dr. Dai's 27th year in China. In the past 27 years, he has witnessed the rapid development of China, and has devoted himself to it, becoming a complete "China expert". Today, he devotes most of his energy to science popularization. He not only traveled all over China with his popular science lectures, but also became a popular popular science blogger with nearly 10 million followers on Kuaishou, showing the magic of chemistry to thousands of people.
Dr. Dai Wei's trip to Shanghai for chemical science popularization can be said to be a classic, full and wonderful. Zhang Yijie, secretary of the Party branch and political instructor of Hongkou Fire and Rescue Station, Hongkou District, Shanghai, said that our fire commanders and fighters have been dealing with "fire" in ordinary times.
Wu Zhao, principal of Shanghai Gezhi Middle School, said that chemistry has a long history with Gezhi Middle School, and the main founder of the school, Xu Shou, is a pioneer of modern Chinese chemistry, and he translated a large number of natural science works together with another main founder, Fu Lanya, published the influential popular science journal "Gezhi Compilation" at that time, and named the Chinese names of 24 elements for the first time when translating the periodic table. The interesting chemistry experiment brought by Professor Dai Wei to the students this time contains Boao's scientific thinking, ignites the fire of exploring science in the hearts of Gezhi students, and stimulates the lofty ambition of Gezhi students to become a scientific power.
Zhang Min, principal of the First Central Primary School in Jing'an District, Shanghai, said: "Chinese modernization needs to cultivate thousands of modern young citizens, and the cultivation of scientific literacy and scientific spirit is particularly important. Today, Dr. Dai Wei has planted the seeds of chemistry for our young citizens, and I believe that they will surely blossom and bear fruit in the future. ”