From building schools to delivering courses, SAIC Volkswagen’s ＂Stars Project＂ has been upgraded to version 2.0, lighting up the dream of scientific innovation for rural children.
Get to know gravity knowledge with an "unstoppable coke can", make a solar car by yourself, and team up with classmates to design and make an insect trap … Recently, SAIC Volkswagen went to Skoda Hope Primary School in Minle Town, Huayuan County, Xiangxi Autonomous Prefecture, Hunan Province for a charity visit, bringing the latest STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) public welfare education course, which will be behind the birth of the car.
During the activity, the media and volunteers of SAIC Volkswagen employees joined STEM class as teaching assistants, and also held basketball games and banner graffiti activities with the children in their spare time. The children also brought wonderful Miao dance exercises and martial arts performances, and learned Miao language and sang Miao language songs with the volunteers. After school, the volunteers became guardians, holding hands with big hands and accompanying the children home together.
"Star Project" helped build 11 hope schools in 10 years.
As an iconic public welfare project of SAIC Volkswagen, the "Star Project" has gone through nearly 10 years.
In 2015, SAIC Volkswagen and China Youth Development Foundation launched the "Star Project" to improve the construction of teaching buildings and teaching environment, and provide teaching equipment and teaching resources for rural schools. Up to now, SAIC Volkswagen’s "Stars Project" has donated more than 16 million yuan and built 11 Hope Schools in Hunan, Henan, Guangxi, Hubei, Xinjiang, Guizhou, Shaanxi, Yunnan and other places, benefiting more than 1,000 young people every year, with a total number of beneficiaries exceeding 20,000. There are sports facilities, library, voice classroom, computer room and other supporting facilities in the school building, which bring more efficient learning tools and richer learning resources to children.
The investment in public welfare education is accompanied by the development of SAIC Volkswagen. As early as 1995, SAIC Volkswagen paid attention to the importance of youth education in the development of underdeveloped areas and began to build Hope Primary School in Xinjiang. Since 2012, the company has donated educational funds to Xinjiang for five consecutive years, and equipped local schools with computer rooms, art rooms and sports equipment.
STEM curriculum helps rural education to improve its soft power in an all-round way
"It’s amazing that there are so many steps to make a car!" "It turns out that science is so fun!" In the STEM class of Minle Town Primary School, children give such admiration from time to time.
STEM education is a hot direction at home and abroad, and it is the key to cultivate innovative and compound talents. In November 2023, UNESCO established the UNESCO International STEM Education Institute in Shanghai, China, which provided a good development prospect for STEM education in China. However, STEM education in rural areas is still in its infancy and needs the support of all parties.
In order to help rural revitalization and rural education, in recent years, SAIC Volkswagen has launched an upgraded version of "Star Project" 2.0, providing their own STEM education program for rural schools, transforming from helping school hardware upgrade to cultivating the soft power of rural education in all directions.
According to SAIC Volkswagen, the STEM course aims to cultivate students’ ability to integrate and apply subject knowledge, scientific and engineering practice, and 4C (Communication, Collaboration, innovation, critical thinking and problem solving) core literacy.
Aiming at the pain points of rural schools, the "Star Project" provides solutions one by one:
Lack of courses, then independent research and development. The "Stars Project" invested 8 million yuan, and cooperated with professional organizations such as the Youth Foundation to develop 12 theme courses for preschool and grade 1-6 students, covering the fields of life science, material science, earth and universe science, technology and engineering, involving the core concepts of the earth, materials, machinery, plants, insects and other disciplines. Each course provides corresponding courseware, student handbook, teacher handbook and course material package. During the course development, the R&D engineers of SAIC Volkswagen actively participated in the course, integrating the engineering knowledge that students are interested in, such as lighting design, vehicle energy and traffic signals, into the course in a simple way.
Lack of teachers, then empower rural teachers in all directions. In 2023, SAIC Volkswagen and China Youth Development Foundation launched the public welfare project "STEM Course Teacher Training for SAIC Volkswagen Hope Project", which targeted 100 teachers from 10 SAIC Volkswagen Hope Primary Schools and the 19th Primary School in Karamay, Xinjiang, and carried out two phases of offline centralized training and one phase of online training.
In addition, SAIC Volkswagen also equipped the school with STEM teaching equipment and course packages to solve the worries of the school. In order to improve teachers’ and students’ attention and interest in STEM, we also cooperated with educational professional institutions to support the school to carry out special STEM activities in Germany at the Science and Technology Festival.
At present, 12 STEM theme courses have been fully promoted in Hope School aided by SAIC Volkswagen, and will be gradually extended to more non-aided schools. According to the investigation, 100% teachers think that STEM education should be carried out in schools and hope to provide relevant teacher training and teaching and research guidance. Nearly 100% students are looking forward to learning STEM courses.
Protecting the stars and creating a "common benefit" future, SAIC Volkswagen has been practicing the responsibility of sustainable citizens since its 40th anniversary. The "Star Project" starts from Shanghai and covers Hunan, Guangxi, Shaanxi, Xinjiang and Yunnan, and helps the development of rural education with STEM education. "Gongyi+"focuses on the enterprise ESG strategy, and invites employees, users, media and social welfare organizations to join the circle of friends of Gongyi to create public welfare projects and build a sustainable community.
In the future, SAIC Volkswagen will continue to practice corporate social responsibility, integrate the concept of sustainable development with development strategy, and integrate public welfare DNA into every key action of the enterprise.
Author: Zhou Yuan
Text: Zhou Yuantu: Photo courtesy of the organizer Editor: Zhang Tianchi Editor: Xu Jinghui
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