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Student wins first prize in international contest
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Pan Siyun, a sixth-grader, did a presentation on how the migrant population in Shanghai challenges the environment before a jury of experts in history and biology.
After a huge effort in digging, researching and doing interviews on this subject, Pan confidently exhibited her findings like a real professional. It paid off: She won first prize.
Currently a student at Shanghai No. 1 Experimental School affiliated to Shanghai International Studies University, Pan was among the 300 students who participated in the second Global Natural History Day Competition, which started when students began their work in April and culminated on August 17.
Organized by Global Health and Education Foundation, a California-based organization that promotes worldwide health and education, the competition was free to enter and open to any student between Grade 2 and 10.
This year’s theme was “Great Migrations: Animal, Botanical, Anthropological.”
A total of 100 student teams, 81 local teams from cities and provinces such as Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chongqing, Shenzhen and Shandong, and 19 foreign student teams from Hawaii and international schools in China, participated in the finals in Shanghai this month.
The competition is an academic and dynamic program that takes students and teachers out of the classroom and into the world by looking for primary sources such as biologists, anthropologists and researchers to assist in their work on a chosen topic.
The participants can do the presentation in either ways — exhibition or performance.
“My grandma learned the news about the competition from TV and encouraged me to enter for it. Since May, I’ve spent a lot of time in libraries to look for information concerning my topic,” Pan said.
“I also got the chance to interview experts from the weather bureau and water authority with the help of teachers and parents. I did the presentation in English with my teammate and I’m so glad to win first prize.”
In addition to cash prizes for this year’s contest, Pan, together with 35 other winners, will be eligible for the “Kenneth E Behring Discovery Trip” in February 2014, which will take winning students and teachers on a 10-day private safari tour of South Africa. Behring, a US entrepreneur, founded the Global Health organization.
“My daughter has won several prizes at English speech contests nationwide. But it is a brand new experience to participate in this contest with a focus on science and research,” said Li Ruqiu, Pan’s mother.
“She’s doing a complete and rigorous piece of research and gaining hands-on experience with peers.”
Topics from other student teams include how the red-crowned crane migrants, the Chinese sturgeon’s migration and how to protect the Earth. The students creatively did the presentations in forms such as drama and crosstalk, and some even made their own costumes. Crosstalk is a traditional Chinese form of comic dialogue. In crosstalk, performers try their best to make fun of or take advantage of other performers with a skillful play of words.
Gong Tao, 13, presented the “Life of Chilies” by doing crosstalk with a teammate. They showcased how chilies that originated from Mexico arrived and thrived in Chongqing.
“I wrote the script by myself. All the materials came from research on the Internet,” Gong said. “Neither of us had practiced crosstalk before. Thanks to our mentor for teaching us.”
Chen Tian, manger of strategy development unit of the Global Health and Education Foundation, called it a contest to promote the love of nature among young people by studying the migration and evolution of animals and plants.
“Being on the jury, I’m marveling at the students’ hard work and creativity, as well as the support from teachers and parents,” Chen said. “We hope more students will join in, raising their own ability through the competition and becoming more enthusiastic in probing into nature and science.”
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