iGEM in Rural China Project

China is a vast country and its development is unbalanced. In Beijing, the per capita GDP is $16375.96 (Nation Bureau of Statistics of the People’s Republic of China) in 2012 which is similar to developed countries, while in rural areas, such as Weifang, Shandong Province, which we gave a speech about iGEM, the per capital GDP is $6926.61 according to the data in 2012 (Weifang Bureau of Statistics). According to the officer website of iGEM, only students in Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Hefei and Guangzhou participated in. These are the richest areas in China.

As students from Beijing Normal University, we pay great attention to educational equality. Our iGEM in Rural China Project aims at improving the educational equality, so we choose Weifang, a rural area in China, to deliver the scientific frontiers to them.

On August 1st, we gave a speech about biology and synthetic biology to students from 6 different schools in Gaoge village, Weifang. We were deeply moving by their thirsty for knowledge.

On the way to schools in rural areas

BNU iGEM team giving classes in Weifang

When we were talking about some knowledge out of their text books, they showed amazed expression and were thirsty to know more, for most of them don’t have any access to the Internet and the only way to know the outside world is by TV. However, TV program never deliver scientific knowledge timely in detail. They are the ones that in need of our help.

However, according to previous wikis, communicating with senior high students from schools in urban areas is really rare. High school students in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou have already enjoyed best education resources, while rural areas in Shandong Province, such as Weifang, are badly in need of that kind of education. Although our program is only a small step for education equality, but we will still do it step by step in next years’ program.

References

Nation Bureau of Statistics of the People’s Republic of China. (2013). Retrieved Oct 11th , 2014, from http://www.stats.gov.cn/

Weifang Bureau of Statistics. (2013) Retrieved Oct 11th , 2014, from http://www.wf-stats.gov.cn/

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