The project-based learning (PBL) course is the innovative practice course opened in 2017. Throughout the course, students start to practice and apply the way of learning independently through teamwork. The student project can be either complex problems, solutions to real-world problems, or topics on a smaller scale. This semester, a total of more than 40 courses which integrated science and art were opened. Under the guidance of teachers, students learned the concepts independently and persisted in the exploration of STEM innovative practices throughout the courses. On Jan. 4, Grades 9-10 students went to the lecture hall of Zhentao Building to conduct their showcases for PBL and Beyond Courses. Let's take a look at some of the projects presented by them.

Art and performance courses, such as "Improvisation and Dramatic Creation" and "How to Listen", stimulated students' imagination through artistic creation. They found interesting topics around them, extracted some of the artistic elements, and further improved their thinking sensitivity and enhanced the flexibility of artistic expression in the form of performance. Cultural and hands-on courses, such as "Chinese Papercutting", "The Rope-Tying Manual Experience", "Qiao Jiacha: Chinese Traditional Desserts and Cake-Making", taught the importance of preserving traditional Chinese culture and inheritance. The students experienced the fun of handicraft and felt the extensive and profound Chinese culture in their exquisite artistic work.

Engineering and practice courses, "Python Data Mining", promoted the students' programming skills to explore the combination of keyword searches and classification. The students made reasonable use of web crawler tools, mining "robot" as the keyword search results. Meanwhile, it cultivated students' computational thinking, as well as digital learning and innovation quality.

The "Virtual Air Racing" course brought together a group of students who love unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) controls and designs. They took this course to understand the engineering principles of UAVs, how to design, make, and test the UAV models by hand, and feel the fun of flying UAVs in open areas.

The biology course, "Multifunctional Fruit Wine Yeast" highly connected the biological exploration process with human life. In the class, students made their own wines with different fruit flavors while learning about the fermentation process of fruit. "Human Biology" focused on the brain, the most important part of the human body. They discussed learning from scientific perspectives, and gave some reasonable suggestions.

Mathematical courses, such as "Case Study of Mathematical Economics", explored knowledge of economic models, and effectively analyzed the core elements affecting housing prices from the area of economics. "Exploring Geometry with Origami" combined math with origami games. Students made short videos that showed the process of making paper and inspired their love of math knowledge. "Fun Experiments and Mini Models in Physics" combined physics and electrical experiments with music and song creation. The interdisciplinary course opened everyone's eyes to practice science in an artistic form, which is quite innovative and interesting.

Through a variety of independent learning and exploration activities, the students not only gained new knowledge, but also explored their potential. These courses and activity platforms can lead the participation of everyone, and promote their curiosity and self-consciousness of innovative practices. Let's hope they can explore and discover more in the years to come.

(Written by Tianzhou He Pictures by Hui Liao Reviewed by Qian Zuo)