Volunteers enrich education experience in rural Shaanxi

A group of volunteer teachers in Northwest China's Shaanxi province have been promoting rural vitalization and aiding the Ministry of Education's efforts to narrow the urban-rural education gap.

At Tielu Primary School, which is tucked deep in the Daba section of the Qinling Mountains in Langao county, a group of six volunteers — organized by the Mercy Wings Program — transformed two simple classrooms into a laboratory, a history hub and a virtual museum on June 20.

Welcoming 15 students a day for a five-day immersion course in science, culture and sports, volunteers Lu Youming, Liu Ke, Liu Yuxuan, Xu Haoran, Qi Zixuan and Jiang Tianqi said they saw an unusual surge of excitement as the pupils came through the doors.

History lessons opened each morning with primary source readings and virtual reality headsets. A fourth grader surnamed Zhu, who has never travelled beyond the county border, gazed at the golden roofs of the Palace Museum through the headset and said, "I've never been to Beijing, but now I know something about the Forbidden City."

Some younger students were even more inspired. A second grader surnamed Chen said: "To learn about history courses made me see how vast and profound our national culture is", while a third grader surnamed Zhang added, "In the future, I will become someone who can protect culture and help keep it alive."

After lunch, lab benches would take center stage. Pupils put on makeshift goggles to witness a sudden stream of oxygen rush from a potassium permanganate reaction. "When the air from the potassium shot out of the bottle, we all jumped," one student laughed. Another chimed in: "This is the first time for such a wild science experiment class... Chemistry is magic."

Flight fundamentals followed. With cardboard wind tunnels and paper plane races, children felt the push and pull of Bernoulli's principle in solid form before they built balsa wood gliders. By the Friday, the pupils could make their own models.

A session in sports science closed each day. A Beijing Shooting Team coach who has worked with Olympic-grade athletes guided pupils through laser rifle drills via a live stream. "This is the first time I learned about shooting in school! If I get the chance, I will visit the capital to see it," said one fascinated fifth grader. Another added: "World champions succeed through sweat and effort."

The volunteer teachers say they see the courses as a long-term endeavor. "Education is a long-term thing, and I hope we can keep contributing to grassroots education in the future," said Lu Youming, the program's initiator.
Going forward, the team intends to raise funds to install a permanent mini lab and VR room so that the Tielu pupils can continue their experiments and explorations.