China Association of Children’s Science Instructors

Today was our first professional session. It was a seminar format with 8 Chinese science educators who represented the China Association of Children’s Science Instructors (Like our NSTA), the China Research Institute for Science Popularization, the Youth’s Science and Technology Museum, and Beijing Normal University. The focus topics were professional development for teachers, STEM education and environmental education. 


 I participated on the panel to share about STEM initiatives. They were very interested in the Corridor Stem Initiative in Iowa. It was interesting to me to hear how they are concerned with many of the same issues we are in the states. I guess I thought they might be more complacent since they lead the world in so many STEM areas. They are trying to promote the popularization of science through a national initiative. It stresses innovation, thinking and solving authentic  problems, and creativity and especially targets the rural kids. 


The whole process of working with an interpreter was a new one for me. When I was speaking during the panel, it was a little hard to maintain my train of thought, while I spoke, then paused for the interpreter, then spoke etc. I was amazed at how our guide would listen to the speakers, take some notes while they spoke and then in a matter of seconds would translate!  

Tomorrow we visit the campus of the Beijing Normal University as well as their Primary Experiemental School where we will observe a classroom. Our leader today said we’d be observing in a similar way as the Japanese Lesson Study model, so I am very interested in that. Stay Tuned!

Customs

When we arrived in Beijing, we went through customs and noted the very cute little characters as we approached baggage claim. Each character has a meaning and in totality their message translates to Beijing Welcomes You. They were promoting their 2008 Olymiad games and kept them, I guess. 

Beijing Hotel

We are staying in a beautiful comtemporary hotel. You can see the entrance in the photo. The view from our hotel is a beautiful city view. See photo of the roundabout at night from our window and then again in the morning. There are 4 million cars in Beijing as I said before and many seem to go by here! Occasionally we see brave bicyclists navigating this maze of traffic!