Information technology boosts popular science education in poor areas

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-10-24 15:53

BEIJING: A click of mouse and one could listen to the story of rare Przewalski antelopes in northwest China and review the total solar eclipse in July.

With the spread of internet and multi-media technology, Chinese scientists and educators have applied digital technology into popular science teaching in poverty-stricken areas.

The Computer Network Information Center (CNIC) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) signed a strategic cooperation framework on Friday with the China Youth Development Foundation (CYDF) to boost information technology application in classrooms of Project Hope.

Xiao Yun, director of the CNIC's internet-based science communication center, called it an "important opportunity" for the CNIC to "take part in the public welfare cause by directly sending multi-media devices to students and teachers in poor areas."

Project Hope is the most influential non-governmental undertaking sponsored by the CYDF, aiming at supporting young dropouts in impoverished areas that face a shortage of education funds. It was launched in 1989.

Till now, as many as 15,940 primary schools were established thanks to social donations, according to the CYDF release.

Kepu.net.cn, the popular science teaching portal of CNIC, is exemplary. A piece of video showing giant panda nursing drew over 5,000 clicks. It is also supplemented with textual introduction.

In addition to mini-plays that instruct ways of escape from earthquake, scenes of space flight and relics salvage, the website offers scores of professional lectures given by CAS scientists.

Since its inauguration in 1999, Kepu.net.cn has become a well-known pop-science website with 100,000 pictures and more than 70 bilingual visual museums.