Shanghai Ditworld is an NGO running one of our EDUCATE initiatives, the Little Biologists. The project is aimed at 5 to 10-year-olds. It teaches them about science, protecting the environment and promoting the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are an intergovernmental set of 17 aspirational goals with 169 targets. The goals were officially implemented on September 25, 2015, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, US.. In 2017, this project covered 18 schools and educated around 7,000 students.
We spoke with Chu Fan, Course Designer, to learn more about the project.
How does this initiative differ from conventional teaching?
The course is designed to focus on children's development and teach them about aspects of biology. The course teaches biology to students by demonstrating its application in the real world. The course is taught in several elementary schools and communities in Shanghai. The teaching program cultivates an interest in science and biology among students. The program promotes the UN SDGs by showing the link between biotechnology and global or local challenges. We encourage students to explore solutions to solve these challenges.
The course is taught by volunteers with different educational and career backgrounds. Their passion to teach encourages students to explore the potential of biology. We train the volunteers. Novozymes' employees help us to develop the teaching materials and provide guidance on training.
Have you seen any changes in the students since implementing this project?
Since the implementation of the course, we have observed that more students are interested in learning biology and want to become biologists.
