The educators of Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) have tapped into current events in preparing their classes. They have incorporated discussion of COVID-19 into their classes on a variety of topics, based on their knowledge bases or experiences. It has resulted in a positive response from the SUSTech community and society as a whole.
Professor Wu Yan from the Center for Humanities gave a class about “the long shadow of plagues in science fiction works.” He spoke about the wide variety of infectious diseases and extreme panic that had led to social problems in science fiction works while discussing the complexity of human nature. Professor Wu’s class was launched on various online platforms open to the public and has been viewed over two hundred thousand times since its publication on February 12th.
Professor Deng Wei Wei from the Department of Mechanics and Aerospace Engineering recently published an article that sought to explain the spread of aerosols through sneezes, particularly during different seasons. His vivid use of language helped students and scholars understand the dangers of not covering their mouth and nose when sneezing, with more than one hundred thousand people reading the article on WeChat.
In the last week, the Shenzhen Business Daily worked with a variety of social enterprises to launch a series of videos that exhibited “scientists fighting the epidemic.” Scientists across Shenzhen have contributed to the series, including Associate Professor Wang Fei from the School of Microelectronics. Given his significant support for science communication, he said that his participation in providing his voice to the program to help fight COVID-19 is a fundamental part of a scientist’s work. He was praised for his positive energy in communicating and popularizing science in these challenging times.
Assistant Professor Yuan Changgeng from the Center for Social Sciences gave a lecture that has been viewed by over thirty thousand people across mainland China. His studies in anthropology made him one of the most popular educators at SUSTech. He spent his first class of “Arts for Science and Engineering Students,” answering many questions from his students before moving onto more contemporary discussions. He closed the class by saying, “Society will move from knowing a subject to working out how to solve a problem. With that in mind, literature and science are fundamentally interrelated.”
