The Qinghai Provincial Natural Resources Museum in Qinghai province, Northwest China, recently welcomed a group of children from Datong, an autonomous county in Xining city, Qinghai's provincial capital.

The young visitors looked excited to explore the mysteries of landforms and the origin of Earth, and the credit for the visit goes to the drive held nationwide from Sept 17 to 23 to celebrate the National Science Popularization Day, which was launched in 2004.

Science popularization is equally important to sci-tech innovation, as they both underpin innovation-led development.

The proportion of scientifically literate Chinese citizens increased to 12.93 percent in 2022, up 9.66 percentage points compared to 2010. China's modern science and technology museums have received more than 1 billion offline visitors.

Since ancient times, people's curiosity about the universe has never ceased every time they looked up at the stars, said Wu Xiangping, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, during his public lecture on Sept 2, which kicked off this year's “Science and China” lecture tour.

The lecture tour, started in December 2002 with support from academicians and experts, has seen over 2,000 activities held nationwide to answer people's queries about science.

An increasing number of people are showing interest in learning about science and popularizing science. So far, China has over 1 million full-time and part-time science communicators, including teachers, influencers, officials, and volunteers.

Efforts are being made to improve the people's scientific literacy and ensure a further balanced allocation of science resources among regions by organizing science exhibitions and lectures in schools, communities and factories in remote and less developed areas. A Mobile Science and Technology Museum tour has set up over 5,000 stops, bringing science education resources to nearly 2,000 counties in 29 provinces.

In the digital era, online platforms have enhanced people's access to scientific knowledge. A national online platform, the China Digital Science and Technology Museum, has more than 15 million users, and the China Science Communication, an popular science resource base sponsored by the China Association for Science and Technology, has released thousands of videos and graphics to popularize science.

Source: Science and Technology Daily