Sponsored by the Education Bureau of Jing’an District, co-undertaken by Jing’an Education Cooperation & Exchange Center and Shanghai Shixi High School, guided by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) CIFAL Shanghai, and co-organized by Shanghai iMake Education & Technology Co., Ltd., the 2023 City Theme Camp of UN SDG Science and Innovation Training Camp for Jing’an Children & Youth was more than halfway through the journey.

In the previous stage, students learned about the background content of UN Global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities, as well as reading skills and ways to set up projects. By driving issues, students were encouraged to think critically and find solutions. With the guidance and assistance of their teacher, they embarked on a small project focused on monitoring blind spots on community roads. Throughout this project, the students learned about hardware fundamentals and programming applications, successfully completing various challenging tasks in class.

Through teamwork and collaboration, students successfully completed their first independent team project design presentation. Each team member showcased their learning achievements to everyone through PowerPoint presentations, model displays, and functional demonstrations. Projects such as traffic light systems, liquid measurement devices, pet feeders, and intelligent pesticide spraying devices were among the practical outcomes of the students’ scientific and creative learning. These accomplishments left the teachers pleasantly surprised.

After providing feedback on the practicality and feasibility of each team’s work, the teacher focused on explaining key points and techniques for presenting projects, how to create an effective PowerPoint presentation, how to narrate the story behind the project design, the significance of conceptual diagrams in project design, and various design strategies. The teacher’s insightful guidance provided the students with a wealth of knowledge, immersing them in the joy of learning.

As the course progressed, the students’ learning state gradually improved. During the study of the intelligent three-dimensional parking garage project, the teacher began by presenting the project model diagram, providing the students with a clear understanding of the project tasks. In the technical learning phase, students acquired a deeper knowledge of hardware components such as stepper motors, infrared remote control, and servos. The teacher consistently adhered to the principles of learning by doing and exploring throughout the process. While introducing new content, the teacher not only explained the basic principles and knowledge but also encouraged the students to think critically and engage in hands-on practice. By writing control programs, establishing hardware connections, and tackling various challenging tasks, students gained a solid understanding of hardware knowledge and programming skills through practical application. To hold the principle of applying knowledge to practical use, the teacher also assigned comprehensive tasks that required the students to incorporate additional hardware components such as ultrasonic sensors into their model projects. The students were tasked with constructing the structure of the three-dimensional parking garage, establishing hardware connections, and writing control programs according to specific requirements. The sight of their achievements left the students overflowing with excitement, their words unable to fully express the joy they felt.

After this phase of hard work, the students successfully completed the learning of the intelligent three-dimensional garage project. They have effectively accomplished the challenging tasks of model construction and comprehensive function realization. With this, the objectives and tasks of the SDG Science and Innovation Camp’s technical learning module have been smoothly achieved.

The students are about to embark on the most exciting and challenging learning module—independent project creation. Building upon their preliminary proposal, they will now proceed with the overall project design, introduction of the project with PPT, and creation of physical objects of the project.

The students uncover problems in real-life scenarios, contemplate methods for problem-solving, learn and acquire knowledge and skills through hands-on practice, and develop the ability to engage in independent learning through exploration. The classroom of the SDG Science and Innovation Camp truly embodies the essence of “learning by doing, learning by using, and learning by innovating”, which is what an engineering and technical practice-oriented learning environment should be like. Let us eagerly await the students’ upcoming independent project creations!