(Reported by Chen Xin and Gao Rong; photo by Sun Yanqin and Yang Maolan) On November 23, 2023, China University of Geosciences (CUG) held the first commendation activity for the creation of excellent graduate student guidance teams in Room A0113 of the Teaching Complex Building. The geoscience popularization and communication guidance team, composed of Professor Zhang Meizhen, Associate Professor Shang Yuanyuan and Associate Professor Huang Aiwu from this School, was approved as the “First Excellent Guidance Team”, and Zhang Meizhen, head of the team, was awarded the honorary title of “Helpful Mentor for Graduate Students” by the university.
The Geoscience Popularization and Communication Guidance Team currently has 5 supervisors and 26 graduate students, covering disciplines such as Journalism and Communication, Design, and Geoscience. For postgraduate training, the team has always adheres to the combination of teaching and moral education, the integration of ideological and political education and professional knowledge, the coordination of teaching and research, and the integration of professional knowledge and other fields. In recent years, focusing on the geoscience popularization and communication, the team has been committed to spreading geoscience knowledge, inheriting geoscience culture, and cultivating geoscience popularization and communication talents, has carried out various forms of academic research and science popularization creation, and has formed a group of distinctive theoretical research and practical achievements.
CUG has formed its distinctive campus culture, academic culture and educational culture in 70 years of school running practice. Benefiting from CUG’s cultural approach, the team carries out academic research and practical innovation activities around the theme of geoscience popularization and communication, and demonstrates the wisdom and action of CUG in the cultivation of geoscience popularization and communication talents with its unique disciplinary advantages and cultural tension.
In many large-scale events of the university, such as the centennial celebration of the founding of the Party and the 70th anniversary of the founding of the university and other series of news reports, you can always see the names of graduate students such as Wang Huichao, Liu Ziqi, Liu Jiayu, etc., who use their words to write the story of the red culture of CUG. The science and education films “Exploring the Key Belt of the Earth” and “The Story of Crescent Spring” completed in collaboration with the scientific research team of CUG have won numerous awards in various competitions at the national and provincial levels; the science and education film “Zhouqu Mud-Rock Flow Analysis” was broadcasted on CCTV News Channel. They recorded the mysteries of science and the magic of the Earth with their cameras. Student Wang Xuerong appeared as the host in CUG’s centenary gift film “The Daughter of the Party”, which has been broadcasted on Mango TV. Li Zhiyi played the protagonist Chu Yun in CUG’s stage play “The Light of the Earth”, and they used their voices to convey the university strategy of a habitable planet and a beautiful China.
Graduate student Wang Xuerong (first from left) appears on screen as host in “The Daughter of the Party”
Graduate student Li Zhiyi (second from left) plays the female lead, Chu Yun, in the play “The Light of the Earth”
Writing with words, recording with lens, and transmitting with voice - this is how they tell the story of geoscience popularization at CUG, and they reap the fruits and honors while telling the story of geoscience popularization well. The team has won the Hubei Provincial People’s Government’s Scientific Research Award for four times, and has been approved as the National Science Communication Expert Team by the China Association for Science and Technology. With a special edition, Chinese Social Sciences Today introduced the team’s implementation of science popularization and communication education. There are also many outstanding graduates and on-campus students in the team. The program “I Shine with the Party Emblem” led by student Huang Zhiwei was awarded as a high-quality case in the Second National “Two Studies and One Action” Branch Talent Exhibition Activity by the Ministry of Education; graduates Zhang Xiaojuan and Cao Xinyi have become the backbone of the mainstream media Hubei Media Group and Changjiang Daily respectively.
