2022 "Natural Museum School" Project Kicks Off

On the afternoon of June 25, 2022, Shanghai Natural History Museum held the kick-off meeting of the 2022 "Natural Museum School" Project online. Wang Xiaoming, Curator of Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, attended the meeting and delivered a speech. Chen Hua, Director of the Sports, Health and Arts Department of the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission, attended and delivered a speech. The meeting was presided over by Tang Xianhua, Vice-director of the Exhibition and Education Center of Shanghai Natural History Museum. A total of 53 persons, including the members of the Project Group of Shanghai Natural History Museum, the out-of-school education experts, and co-built school leaders and teachers, attended the meeting.

On the afternoon of June 25, 2022, Shanghai Natural History Museum held the kick-off meeting of the 2022 "Natural Museum School" Project online. Wang Xiaoming, Curator of Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, attended the meeting and delivered a speech. Chen Hua, Director of the Sports, Health and Arts Department of the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission, attended and delivered a speech. The meeting was presided over by Tang Xianhua, Vice-director of the Exhibition and Education Center of Shanghai Natural History Museum. A total of 53 persons, including the members of the Project Group of Shanghai Natural History Museum, the out-of-school education experts, and co-built school leaders and teachers, attended the meeting.

At the kick-off meeting, Wang Xiaoming and Chen Hua thought highly of the project of "Natural Museum School", who pointed out that, in the new era, in order to change the mode of thinking and cognition of cooperation between schools and museums, it is necessary to reconstruct the all-round construction from strategy, organization, talent, leadership, resources and operation, build a new ecological system of cooperation between museums and schools focusing on comprehensive education, organizational platform, cooperation empowerment, educational quality, and resource socialization, and build a new brand  to provide more high-quality courseware, curriculum items, and natural resources space in schools, so that students can truly benefit from the project.

Liu Nan, Director of Education and R&D Department of the Exhibition and Education Center of Shanghai Natural History Museum, introduced the project in detail from the aspects of project origin, achievements made in practice and future prospects. Since the implementation of the project, a total of 4 schools have won the first batch of demonstration schools with characteristics of science and technology education in Shanghai and characteristic schools of science and technology education in Shanghai. Liu Nan proposed that in the promotion process of future projects, museums and schools can try more diversified cooperation models in addition to natural history space building and curriculum development.

The leaders of the five co-built schools in the first batch made exchange speeches, and leaders of the ten shortlisted schools in the second batch also introduced the creation plan. In this meeting, Zhang Xufei, a scientific research assistant of the Faculty of Education, East China Normal University, was also invited to introduce the project evaluation and put forward suggestions for schools to carry out the project in the future. She said we could stimulate students' interests, cultivate students' scientific literacy and promote teachers' professional development through innovative teaching models of real learning.

In the future, the museum and school cooperation project of Shanghai Natural History Museum will further innovate and continue to exert force, and achieve more results for improving students' scientific literacy and assisting students' comprehensive development in the context of the new era.