North Carolina Delegation to Beijing Experiences Benefits of Science and Education Collaboration

Members of the N.C. International Science Challenge Delegation.

In March of this year, we had the rare opportunity to participate in a 12-member delegation from North Carolina that spent seven days in Beijing, China. The goal of trip-called the North Carolina International Science Challenge-was for students and science education leaders from our state to witness the excitement around science discovery and education in China.

We did exactly that, but perhaps more important and enduring, we came back to North Carolina with a much greater appreciation of the benefits of collaboration in science and education. What we learned may not be new or surprising, but our experiences certainly deepened our understanding.

To illustrate, we would like to recount three of our delegation's activities in Beijing and offer three realizations (among several) that came from them:

Activity 1: Beijing Youth Science Creation Competition
As the main event of the trip, this competition allowed three North Carolina high school students-Sam Wells and Justin Crowder of Northwest High School in Greensboro, and Drew Roland of Asheville High School-to display their science projects alongside the projects of students from across the globe. The competition included hundreds of high school students from China, as well as several delegations of students from countries such as Australia, Denmark, Italy, and New Zealand. North Carolina's students, chosen through an in-state competition, were the first-ever delegation from the U.S. to participate.

We were amazed at the diversity and high quality of the international students' science projects-from new methods for establishing tree growth on arid hillsides, to a test tube-washing robot and even a vacuum cleaner that climbed walls. But what amazed us even more was how quickly and easily all the students-regardless of their national origin-gravitated to each other. Within minutes of meeting, they were freely exchanging information and ideas and having great fun in the process. The common bond between the students was their passion for science and discovery, and this passion transcended their differences in language, background, and culture.

Interestingly, while the adults on the trip also shared a common interest in science, we would be less than truthful if we said our planned conferences and symposia exhibited the same spontaneous, free-flowing sharing of information shown by the students. And while the amount of valuable information we learned in the short span of our trip is immeasurable, we cannot help but think that the students learned more through their interactions with their peers than we did with ours.

Ultimately, this juxtaposition of unbridled youth interactions, occurring in parallel with our structured adult interactions, drove home our first realization from the trip: Science and education are about discovering and sharing information; as a result, they flourish when given the stimulus and freedom to grow.

We knew the trip had value when we saw our U.S. students engaged in such active dialogues. Those same conversations are still going on through the eager use of the Internet. Science education can no longer be restricted to an isolated geographical area or one block of school time. That realization is occurring worldwide.

Activity 2: Symposium for Science and Technology Staff in Beijing
At the same time the students were displaying their science projects, the education leaders among our delegation attended and made presentations at a formal symposium for more than 75 science and technology staff from Beijing. Hosted by the Beijing Association for Science and Technology (BAST), the symposium focused on strengthening international exchanges and cooperation in what the Chinese refer to as "science popularization," or enhancing the public's scientific knowledge.

It is well known that countries such as India and China graduate large numbers of highly trained scientists and engineers. However, this concentrated strength at the top echelons masks a more fundamental and diffuse challenge for these countries: the vast majority of their citizens at the lower echelons are not very well informed about scientific subjects and understand little about the scientific process. Moreover, the average citizen's science knowledge has improved very little over time.

The U.S. and other industrialized countries face a similar challenge educating the public, as studies by the U.S. National Science Board and related organizations have shown repeatedly. But it is also true that, relative to citizens in India and China, U.S. citizens have notably higher levels of scientific literacy and have considerably more opportunities for improving their literacy. For example, the U.S. alone has more than half the world's science museums, and each of the 50 U.S. states has at least one science museum. In addition, a large cadre of foundations and other nonprofit organizations in the U.S. devote considerable resources toward educating the broader public on issues related to science. Such is not the case in China.

When the symposium ended, the Chinese audience clearly was impressed with the diversity of our efforts to educate our citizens about science. And we were equally impressed with the ability of the Chinese to produce a competitive collection of highly-trained scientists and engineers. This led to our second realization: Each country has its own unique strengths and weaknesses related to science education; by working together and sharing our experiences, both countries could learn and benefit.

Activity 3: Letter of Intent between BAST and NC Organizations
One of the last activities of our trip entailed finalizing and signing a letter of intent between BAST and two U.S. organizations: The North Carolina Grassroots Science Museums Collaborative (GSMC) and the Partnership for Dynamic Learning (P4DL, affiliated with the University of North Carolina at Greensboro). The letter formalizes and further strengthens the three organizations' efforts to engage in scientific and technological collaboration aimed at improving and extending public understanding of science, technology, and scientific education.

Examples of the proposed cooperative activities include conducting two-way scientific and technical consultation, developing formal training programs focused on increasing the science literacy of citizens, and disseminating science education and training programs via the Internet. Together, the organizations will promote scientific and technological collaboration based on the principles of equality and mutual benefits.

The importance of collaborations such as this became even clearer as we drove through and around Beijing during the final two days of our trip. During that time, we traveled outside the city to visit China's most famous and enduring landmark-The Great Wall. While there isn't enough space here to express the full extent of our awe at the Wall's magnitude and grandeur, we can say the Wall obviously represents the old China, the China of isolationism and protectionism. We saw this most plainly on our final day, as we drove to the airport. On the way we passed by a symbol of China's new and emerging strength and its increasingly open and dynamic society-the 2008 Olympic Stadium. The stadium is still under construction, and while much of it is hidden from view, the curiously shaped parts we could see rising above the construction fencing were technologically spectacular and equally as awe-inspiring as the Great Wall.

Together, these two sites-the "old" Great Wall made of ordinary stone and the "new" Olympic Stadium made of synthetic metals-gave rise our third, and perhaps most important realization: We live in an increasingly dynamic, interdependent, and technology-driven world; in such a world, surviving requires responding to change and working with others to produce new knowledge that is shared for the good of all.

Information technology has created a world that lessens the constraints of geography. In an increasingly "wired world," all students can instantaneously retrieve information that resides continents away. They can rework the data with powerful software and create new websites. Our visit to China allowed us to witness young people from many countries who are doing just that. As science educators, we need to assure that United States' students are not at a disadvantage in this new dynamic world.


We would like to express our thanks to Dr. Sam Houston and the North Carolina Science, Mathematics, and Technology Education Center (SMT Center), who provided financial support for the trip.

The North Carolina Delegation included:

Northwest High School, Greensboro, N.C.

Justin Crowder
Sam Wells

Asheville High School, Asheville, N.C.

Drew Rowland

Grassroots Science Museums Collaborative

Dr. Fran Nolan

Guilford County Schools

Robin Bergeron-Nolan
Rice Strange

North Carolina General Assembly

Senator Kay Hagan

University of California at Santa Barbara

Jeanette Hagan

Burroughs Wellcome Fund

Dr. Nancy Sung

Kenan Institute

Bill Tucci

North Carolina Board of Science and Technology

Dr. John Hardin

Partnership for Dynamic Learning

Dr. Rick Basom

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John Hardin is the Deputy Director and Chief Policy Analyst for the North Carolina Board of Science and Technology.

Fran Nolan is the Executive Director of the North Carolina Grassroots Science Museums Collaborative.

 
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