Recently a new thing — the Popular Science Wisdom Wall — has appeared in some residential communities in Shanghai
 

A student from the Yan’an Middle School in Shanghai interacts with the “Mirage Colored Sphere”

The so-called “Popular Science Wisdom Wall” is factually a set of exhibition panels, but it is different from either the popular science galleries or the popular science electronic screens in the past in that it lays greater emphasis on interactivity and interestingness. Being concise in size and relatively thin, the panels can be hung on walls along corridors and will not affect the normal passage of people, making them suitable for indoor venues of residential communities which are usually plagued by the problem of limited space. What is especially worth mentioning is the fact that the “Popular Science Wisdom Wall” not only suits residential communities in downtown areas but is even more appropriate for suburban communities. In a sense this project is tantamount to a small-scale science and technology museum and beneficial in popularizing science and technology among more groups of people.

Over the past days, the Shanghai Association for Science and Technology has organized such popular science wisdom walls for display in some residential communities with a view to promoting the scientific literacy of the residents by enabling more people to approach science, experience its fun and demystify its secrets. This project is also a priority project of Shanghai Association for Science and Technology in promoting its scheme of benefiting urban residents with popular knowledge of science and technology.

As one of the first pilot communities, it has been nearly one year since the Weifang Residential Community in the Pudong New Area installed the Popular Science Wisdom Wall. While interacting with the experimental panels, Madame Wang, a resident of the community told the journalist: “It is really an innovative idea to have such devices displayed on the walls. Previously we did have some rudimentary ideas about certain popular science knowledge, but the problem is we couldn’t elaborate. Now the panels provide us with the opportunity to do experiments and to probe into their scientific principles, which enables us to have a grip of science knowledge. Science, after all, does not seem to be as mysterious now as I imagined.”

According to informed sources, the Shanghai Association for Science and Technology will launch a program of spreading the “Popular Science Wisdom Wall” to all elementary and high schools in Shanghai, With the implementation of this program, the experimental panels of the “Popular Science Wisdom Wall” will be installed in the hallways of schools, so that during breaks between classes, students can experience science in a leisure and pleasant way. In terms of the contents for the exhibition panels, designs are being considered in a serial way to center on such themes as safety, prevention against electric shock and fire prevention etc. in an effort to better satisfy the needs of science popularization for the Shanghai residents and schools, to make the contents closer to people’s daily lives, as well as to let the citizens feel the connectivity and indispensability of science to their well-being. The hosting institutions of the “Popular Science Wisdom Wall” will also change the exhibition panels on regular basis so that citizens will have a constant feeling of freshness; and the Shanghai Association for Science and Technology will organize training for relevant personnel and arrange for science communicators to explain to residents the science knowledge contained in the experimental devices in order to help them decode the secrets of science.