Invention drives you to think and create
By Lily
Photo by Yao Fan

"最有价值的知识是方法的知识." 让学生在畅想中动手, 在实践中总结出触类旁通的学习方法, 不仅能拓展他们的思路, 更能增添他们的自信, 引导他们走向成功. 厦门市一中多年来强调素质教育, 重视学生创新意识和实践能力的做法取得了累累硕果: 近20年里, 共有数百项科技发明在国内外大赛中获奖.

"Can we human beings simply live on grass just like cattle?" "There would be less traffic jams if we could attach a removable chip which can fly us high in the air "...All these fantasies and even more "weird" brainwaves will be greatly encouraged and praised by teachers in Xiamen Number 1 Middle School.

"Teenagers are rich in imagination and eager to turn their dreams into reality. What we teachers should do is just to dig out their potential creativity by stimulating their multi-direction ways of thinking and leading them to the wonderful palace of invention."


庄弘磊和戴彦祺代表中国队参加在新加坡举办的首届国际机器人奥林匹克竞赛
"Robot Sharpshooters " by Zhuang Honglei & Dai Yanqi representing China in the 1st WRO in Singapore conquered the audience and judges

As one of the eminent schools in Xiamen, Xiamen Number 1 Middle School always seeks to foster students' comprehensive competence. Through the arduous effort of all the teachers in "Science & Technology Interest Group", the project has born an abundant fruit. For several decades, 80-90% of the students from this interest group have become the essence of high-tech fields from both at home and abroad, after graduating from TsingHua, Beijing University, Beijing Aviation & Aerospace University and many other famous universities. Among them there are the CEO from Microsoft in USA, the Head Admistrator of Xiamen Air Harbor etc. Students have seized many sorts of international and national prizes in invention.


江腾舟的"可收集降水的植物栽培容器"获第95届巴黎国际发明展银奖
"Rain-collecting Plant Cultivating Container" by Jiang Tengzhou got the silver medal in the 95th Paris International Invention Expo

"We have never heard the term ‘unreasonable' from our teacher whenever we got some new ideas. Instead, they present even greater curiosity in discussing with us how and when we could set to make things out", said Wang Kai, the first prize winner of China's 3rd Youth Computer Robot Competition.


校科技节举办桥梁模型设计赛
Some bridge models in the competition of school's science & technology festival

Every December, the school will give out papers to collect students' tentative ideas. Afterwards, teachers will choose out some items for intensive study. Teacher Huang Jiantong, Wu Xuri and Zhuang Yan as the leading teachers bury themselves into the students' invention world day and night especially before a competition.


吴旭日老师指导学生进行"火星探险"FLL机器人项目
Teacher Wu helps a student to develop "FLL Robot Explorer to Mars"

Though having been a veteran inventor in Xiamen with many national patents and a decent salary from his former job, Huang Jiantong was quite relieved to see that many of his students now have shown their talent in various fields. "I might at most make 100 inventions throughout my life. How wonderful it might be if I could educate 100 future inventors, and supposing they could make 10 inventions in their lives, which would be a 1000 inventions already! That's why I finally decided to become a permanent teacher."

Failure is very common; it's only a kind of experience. You can never succeed without having experienced failures-With this calm and mature status of these promising great inventors, we sincerely wish them to achieve victory in the coming National Invention Competition in the name of Fujian Province.

Science & technology harbor

Britain creates cloned human embryo
英国制造出人类克隆胚胎
British scientists have created a cloned human embryo for the first time, placing the country in the vanguard of a technology with the potential to cure conditions such as Parkinson's, diabetes and paralysis. Genetic testing has confirmed that the cells would be immunological compatible were they to be transplanted, but it is too early to attempt this safely. These advances pave the way for using cloned embryonic stem cells -master cells that can form any tissue in the body -to create spare part tissue for treating various diseases.



Mountaineers reached the summit of Qomolangma
登山者登顶珠峰
A team of 22 Chinese surveyors and women mountaineers, working to re-measure the height of Qomolangma, also known as Mount Everest, has successfully reached the peak of Qomolangma on May 22. China's first measurement in 1975 was 8,848.13 meters above sea level. The expedition is part of China's scientific research program on the mountain which began in March.



Mortuary enclosure of 1st Egyptian pharaoh discovered
发现埃及首位法老墓穴
A 5,000-year-old chamber once used as the burial rituals of Egypt's first major pharaoh was discovered by a joint American excavation from Yale University, the Pennsylvania University Museum and New York University. Archeologists believe that this chamber was used as a mortuary enclosure for King Hur-Aha, the founder of Egypt's First Dynasty. A cache of 200 rough ceramic beer and wine jars were also found.



Netscape's new browser ensures greater security
微软新浏览器保证网络安全
A new version of the Netscape browser, version 8.0, was launched with new updates aimed at fighting viruses, spyware and other security problems. Netscape 8.0 automatically switches security settings, and the browser it uses, based on whether a site is a known and trusted site or an unknown site. The millions of sites neither on the "white" (certified as legitimate by TRUSTe and VeriSign Inc.) or "black" list (dangerous and scam sites) will appear in Firefox for increased security.



Vocabulary
embryo 胚胎
mortuary 埋葬的
probe 探测器
vanguard 先锋
excavation 发掘
chameleon 变色龙