Middle-class parents are quietly engaging in a fierce competition in niche fields.

Middle-class parents are starting to compete in the science and technology innovation track.

On a summer evening, an activity of nocturnal exploration of insects is taking place in the northern park of Olympic Forest Park.

This is the first time Liu Li has taken her 8-year-old daughter to such an outdoor activity. The child is extremely excited and has prepared the equipment early: a headlamp, an observation box, a magnifying glass, a notebook, etc. Her daughter has always been very interested in natural science. The family has bought many thick picture books on natural science, and Liu Li has also taken her daughter to various natural museums in Beijing, but she has never taken her child to this kind of observation activity.

This time, Liu Li and her daughter observed a cicada shedding its shell up close and truly understood what it means to be "as thin as a cicada's wing"; they observed waterbirds such as night herons and coots along the reed beds; they also found a big frog floating under the water plants in the pond, as well as many insects they couldn't name usually.

From "observing insects" to "understanding insects", Liu Li found that her daughter not only remembered a lot of knowledge about insects but also began to learn to explore nature with the help of scientific tools, rather than just staying on the surface of books. In her opinion, this is a gradual process of developing empirical thinking.

Nowadays, in addition to nocturnal exploration of insects in the park, many on-site research and study activities have also become popular. In the past two years, with the maturity and wide application of AI artificial intelligence, parents' educational concepts have also changed. Middle-class parents are not only limited to "learning from books"; they want their children to "get moving", mobilize their senses to observe and perceive the world, and they also attach more and more importance to the cultivation of scientific literacy and certain types of thinking training, such as mathematical thinking, scientific thinking, spatial thinking, etc.

Another 90s mom, Dayu, attaches great importance to the scientific enlightenment of her 5-year-old son. In addition to often taking her child to read relevant scientific enlightenment books and visiting science museums, she also noticed that children of the same age play with some simple scientific enlightenment toys.

Recently, she found that her child is very interested in Mars, so she bought a scientific enlightenment kit for assembling a "Mars rover" for her child. The kit includes a manual assembly kit, an instruction manual, and two small solar panels. It took her and her child two hours to assemble the "Mars rover". As long as it is placed in the sun, the solar panels can provide continuous kinetic energy for the "rover" and make it move forward quickly. Even she sighed that today's toys have become "high-tech masterpieces".

"It allows children to understand the energy source of the rover and make a static toy move through hands-on operation. This process can exercise children's hands-on ability and their spatial perception of building models." Dayu said.

The educational concepts recognized and practiced by these parents actually belong to the currently popular STEM educational concept. It cannot be ignored that this educational concept is being taken more and more seriously by families.

The so-called STEM concept is an educational model based on four major disciplines: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. It cultivates comprehensive abilities through interdisciplinary integration and practical application. Its core lies in breaking the boundaries of traditional disciplines and emphasizing the cultivation of real problem-solving and innovation abilities.

A blogger launched a questionnaire survey on Xiaohongshu about STEM courses. 93% of netizens said it is necessary to consider learning STEM courses, as it can not only cultivate children's scientific and technological innovation thinking and improve their ability to solve problems with comprehensive subject knowledge but also make it easier for them to obtain employment opportunities in the future job market.

As one of the first foreign-funded enterprises to enter China, 3M has not only kept up with the pulse of China's economic development and explored the localization development of the enterprise in the past four decades but also actively fulfilled its social responsibilities and carried out various volunteer activities. One of them is to carry out various STEM-related public welfare activities.

It is understood that 3M has supported the China region of the Global Invention Convention (ICC) for three consecutive years. At the same time, 3M has also carried out the "Science Mobilization" series of popular science activities during the summer vacation for many years. 3M technicians bring interesting situational science classes based on real life to children aged 6 to 12, igniting their curiosity for new knowledge and leading more teenagers into the palace of science.

In order to promote the equality of STEM education, 3M has also established STEM education bases for primary schools of children of migrant workers and regularly invited employee volunteers to bring interactive science classes integrating the STEM educational concept to the children.

More and more people are beginning to realize that while AI, as the "super test-taker", is replacing more and more mechanical jobs, human creative thinking and the comprehensive ability to discover problems from life, think, and then solve problems hands-on are becoming more and more important. This is the core ability that makes humans irreplaceable by AI.

How to conduct "low-cost scientific enlightenment"?

On the road of competing in the science track, some middle-class parents choose to spend a lot of money.

Wang Ning, who lives in Shanghai, is one of the typical middle-class parents. She spent 20,000 yuan to enroll her daughter in a one-year STEM creativity course at a training institution. During the class, the teaching teacher not only lets the children learn theoretical knowledge. More importantly, this place is more like a big workshop. There are laser engravers, heat presses, 3D printers, glue guns, welding machines, drills, etc. in the studio. The children can disassemble anything, such as computers, bicycles, calculators, etc.

For example, children can understand how a computer works by disassembling it and experience how a lever helps people save effort. Let children understand "why" and establish an intuitive understanding of science.

The children also use various tools such as hot glue guns, wire strippers, and rubber hammers to assemble what they want to create. For example, recently a trendy toy called LABUBU has become popular. Many children who wanted to buy it couldn't get one, so they printed a LABUBU with a 3D printer by themselves.

In the AI era, competitive individuals should have scientific thinking, engineering capabilities, and humanistic spirit. Children may not become scientists in the future, but they must have scientific thinking; they may not become engineers in the future, but they should have the ability to solve problems hands-on." said the person in charge of this STEM education institution. Nowadays, children are not short of theories but lack hands-on ability in disassembly and assembly.

However, cultivating scientific thinking doesn't necessarily cost a lot of money. Being a conscientious educator and using materials from daily life can also achieve twice the result with half the effort. For example, science experiment bloggers on Xiaohongshu are very popular. They share many short videos of scientific experiments. A set of paper cups, colored pens, playing cards, etc. in daily life can also be used for children's scientific enlightenment education. These methods have also attracted the attention of many parents.

A netizen on Xiaohongshu shared how to use playing cards to enlighten children's number sense. The playing cards bought for 2 yuan have been played in new ways. For example, through games such as grabbing numbers by listening to commands, number passwords, and memory challenges, children's concentration, observation ability, and logical thinking can be cultivated.

Now, it's also easy to find many high-quality science popularization videos online. For example, "So That's How It Is?!" produced by Himalaya, with a playback volume of 312 million, explains scientific phenomena in daily life to children in simple and easy-to-understand language. It can also be a low-cost way for children to open the door to science.

A parent who often encourages children to be brave in exploration said that scientific enlightenment doesn't have to start from esoteric science formulas. Children's scientific enlightenment can completely start from the nature around them. "We can stimulate children's scientific interest and exploration spirit and cultivate their observation ability and sense of responsibility by guiding them to observe natural phenomena, plant plants, or raise small animals."

The American physicist Feynman developed curiosity and a desire to explore natural phenomena from a young age under the guidance of his father. His father encouraged him to observe, think, and propose hypotheses, and then verify them through experiments. This scientific thinking method benefited Feynman greatly in his later scientific research.

Students with special talents in science and technology have become a new way out in the science and technology innovation track.

After one year of STEM education at the institution, Wang Ning clearly felt that her daughter's empirical and inquisitive scientific thinking had been significantly improved.

Wang Ning found that the teachers here don't directly give the children the blueprints. Instead, they need to use their brains first and then take action. "For example, if they want to assemble a propeller car, they first need to understand why the car can move, and then they can think about how to solve the problem of 'how to make the car move'."

More importantly, her daughter has become braver and more confident. "There is a foreign teacher in this class. She didn't like to communicate with others in English before, but now she can retell the class content to me in English when she gets home."

Through various disassembly, assembly, and hands-on experiments, the child's hands-on ability has also improved a lot. "She also knows a lot of tools and which protective gear to wear with which tool. She knows it all clearly." Once, her daughter brought back a wooden scooter she made by herself. It looked very simple, but her daughter told her that this was the "prototype" of the scooter.

The 90s mom Dayu thinks more long-term. In the past two years, as a person in the financial industry, she has experienced the ups and downs of the industry. The instability of her job has made her have a clear understanding of her child's educational direction: In the future era of artificial intelligence, the employment prospects of science students may be much better than those of liberal arts students. Therefore, it is becoming more and more important to cultivate children's science thinking, innovation thinking, and hands-on ability.

In addition, she also noticed that the "students with special talents in science and technology" (those with special talents in fields such as science and technology innovation, robotics, model airplanes, and programming) as a niche way of entering higher education is gradually heating up. According to the "Going in Different Directions: 2023 China Education Market Innovation Trend Report" released by the Innovation Education Research Group of the 21st Century Economic Research Institute, the growth of quality education categories such as programming, robotics, and research and study camps is obvious. The growth rate of the off-campus training market for information schools targeting students with special talents in science and technology and the Informatics Olympiad will exceed that of the quality programming education market, and it is expected to reach 20% of the market share in the next three years.

Importantly, the education department is also vigorously promoting the enrollment policy for students with special talents in science and technology. As long as students get good results in the "white list" competitions recognized by the education department, they have the opportunity to enter famous schools in the name of "students with special talents in science and technology". Many middle-class parents hope to secure a certain future for their children through the path of students with special talents in science