A cute hands-on experience about life sciences

Life science is actually all around us. Curious kids may come into contact with such phenomena frequently, but barely have the chance to figure out the deeper science.

On August 21, 27 cub reporters from grade one to grade seven went on a study visit to Bayer China headquarters and a pet hospital to find out the secrets of allergy and animal healthcare.

Through this one-day trip organized by Shanghai Daily, they learned about allergy and its causes, how to keep healthy and what health protection animals need.

“I think they have quite a wide range of knowledge,” commented Celina Chew, president of Bayer Group China.

“When you talk about a specific life science topic like allergy, they can quickly catch up and give related examples in their daily lives.”

At the beginning of the visit, she welcomed the students and gave a brief introduction of Bayer and its idea about life science.

“Life science may sound very complicated, but actually we deal with it in every aspect of our daily life. I hope you can develop passion for life science and explore it, starting from childhood,” she said.

Jiang Jianguo from the department of Medical Affairs then gave a lecture on allergy, explaining symptoms, causes and simple ways to ease allergy.

When it came to possible allergens like pollen, dust mites, animal hair and many others, interesting questions were raised.

“Since pollen is an allergen, what if a bee is allergic to pollen?” one of the cub reporters asked, immediately, causing a big laugh in the room.

Our cub reporters were very active during the lecture, many of them talked about the allergy they saw in their lives.

“One of my friends is allergic to seafood, I never saw him eat any seafood,” said one, followed by another.

“Once, I got allergy for eating too much ice creams. It took me four years to be cured!” 

During the following visit around the office area of Bayer China, attracted by its tidiness and comfort a few kids said that they wanted to work here in the future. 

The next stop was the Pet Hospital (Putuo Branch) of the Shanghai Animal Healthcare Co. It comes under the Shanghai Prevention and Control Center of Animal Disease.

Here, the cub reporters were shown around the departments in the hospital first. They were curious about the medical facilities for pets, which looked just like scaled-down versions of those for humans. 

Niu Guangbin, director of the Pet Hospital, gave a small lecture on preparation and regulation for keeping pets and what to do to keep them fit. Some of the young reporters have pets themselves.

They actively got involved in discussion with Niu, talking about the food that shouldn’t be given to dogs. In the following quick quiz section, almost every cub reporter was so eager to be the first to answer that they could barely wait for Niu to finish getting the question out.

The last friend the youngsters met was a corgi dog called Yi Xiu. She was the model for Niu to demonstrate the usage of Bayer Advocate for Dogs flea treatment. The process was simple — all he did was gently drop the liquid on the skin of Yi Xiu.

Bayer has been promoting the teenagers’ science education for a long time, selecting different topics according to groups of people and seasons and then organizing various activities. Bayer believes that cultivation of scientific literacy should start at an early age.