中文
HOME
HOME / LATEST NEWS / Content

Grade 9: Visit the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Prof Li's lab)

May 15, 2017

Grade 9: Visit the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Prof Li's lab)

On May 13th, many students and their parents gathered around the gates of the Chinese Academy of Sciences at about eight thirty in the morning. Volunteers helped to group us and lead us into the academy.

Trees flourished throughout the academy. We first came to the building shown in the picture, where many pictures and portraits were on display.

Professor Li gave us a lecture on asexual propagation entitled “Where is Daddy?”. The lecture started with the story of Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, making small monkeys by pulling out fistfuls of his own fur, which students and parents enjoyed very much. After that, the professor mentioned John B. Gurdon, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine for the discovery that mature cells can be converted to stem cells. We also found out that he did not get good grades in Biology in high school because he always persisted with his own thoughts and ideas. His teachers all said that he would never be a scientist. However, he accomplished the first cloning experiment in the world because of this characteristic. What is more, Professor Li talked about issues in real-life cloning, such as cloning excellent individuals, pets and endangered animals.

The lecture lasted for about 45 minutes, and at the end our students had plenty questions to ask. Professor Li answered every one of them, one by one. One of the questions asked why mammoth and dinosaurs still cannot be cloned, and professor explained the difficulties in detail.

After the lecture, we went to visit the laboratory. Since there were many students and parents, we were divided into groups of ten and led to the lab group by group. The others stayed in the meeting room next door watching documentaries.

All the solutions and equipment was put in order on the shelves. The students showed great interest and curiosity in this part of activity. The visit to the lab was divided into two main sections. One was observing laboratory mice, while the other was observing sperm and eggs under electronic microscopes. The former was really popular among students. They gathered around the two plastic cases that the mice lived in, and some even put the mice on their hands to observe them.

Soon, the morning’s activities ended. Students received a certificate for participation, and left.

(Written by 9(2) Jolyne Lin Picture by 9(2) Jolyne Lin)