Love summer, learn, have fun
Students try to launch the water rocket they made on the lawn of the China Welfare Institute Children’s Palace on Thursday.
Online science and technology courses developed by the China Welfare Institute Children’s Palace and Intel have been delivered to more than 500 “Love Summer Care” camps around Shanghai to fill students' slack time during in the summer vacation.
The Children’s Palace and the company have been organizing these activities since 2005, but it is the first time they have been involved in the government “Love Summer Care” program.
About 100 primary school students from Minhang District were the first to take classes on Thursday with teachers and volunteers from Intel.
Some of them learned to make water rockets from plastic bottle, and some made air rockets with two pieces of white paper. Other classes included making VR glasses, making flowerpots that automatically water the plants and using the Scratch application to create a program where a cat can solve a maze.
“It’s amazing to use such simple materials, such as plastic bottles and cotton thread, to make flower watering automatic,” said a girl. “I will make some at home for my mother. She loves flowers but sometimes she is too busy to remember to water the plants.”
Chen Junyi, one of the students, said it was his third year in the “Love Summer Care” program, which was launched in 2014 by the Shanghai Committee of the China Youth League and has catered for around 173,000 children whose parents are unable to look after them during the holidays.
“I love the summer camp. It has a lot of science classes,” he said. “Although we are young, I think we should be active in observing and making small inventions or creations.”
More classes will be organized in “Love Summer Care” camps in Changning, Minhang and Yangpu disticts.
Todd Brady (left), director of global public affairs and sustainability for Intel Corporation, tries a pair of VR glasses made by a student.
Students learn to make self-watering flowerpots.
A student writes a program for a cat to walk through a maze.
