Program gets female students into science

An innovative education program is getting more young female students involved with ecological science through hands-on practice and practical problem solving.

The program, run in collaboration by Samsung China and the China Women's Development Foundation, has been held for the past seven years, and courages female students to become more active in acquiring technological knowledge and critical thinking.

This year, young girls from Beijing, Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, and the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, are taking part, seeking to develop a comprehensive system to accurately measure the environmental health of small ponds.

By one pond in a village in Guang'an city, Sichuan, a group of female middle school students adjusted a floating ecological measuring device fitted with solar panels and sensors, and shaped like a goldfish, on May 3.

Zhou Chuanbin, a researcher from the Center for Ecological and Environmental Sciences at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, watched over this group of girls with an average age of 15.

As an electronic prompt rang out, the students cheered — their self-designed "Pond Health Micro-Clinic" had been officially put into operation.

"While significant progress has been made in managing major rivers and lakes, the small and micro water bodies scattered across urban and rural areas are the 'last mile' in water environment management," said Zhou on choosing pond health as the theme for this year's program.