Biography of explorer
Ding Chen
Practitioner of youth polar adventure education
Since 2011, Ding Chen has organized teenagers to visit Antarctic, Arctic, Qingdao Plateau, Nanhai , and other places to conduct investigations and research on scientific topics such as polar environment, Biodiversity , marine resources, geological structure, and global climate change. The scientific expedition team has published more than 300 scientific research papers on polar , published more than 20 scientific and technological articles signed by students, and discovered 3 unknown polar species.
What is the difference between children who have been to the polar science test?
You take your children to feed sparrows and crucian carp in the city park; children from polar sciences are watching polar bear beg for food hungryly, and witnessing skua prey on penguin cubs.
Your child is watching the blooming flowers in the botanical garden; at 78° north latitude, a child picked up a plant fossil and cracked the appearance of the Arctic 300 million years ago.
A composition assigned by the child for the teacher was in a hurry and could not start writing; a child who was in the polar science exam, tens of thousands of words of scientific research paper has been published in the journal.
is all concerned about global warming and calls for environmental protection; children who explore the polar regions have already taken ice core from the polar regions to calculate the global climate trend.
In the summer of 2011, the Arctic ushered in a special scientific investigation team - 18 primary and secondary school students from Beijing, kicking off the prelude to China's polar education and Chinese youth scientific research.
The organizer and planner of this event is Ding Chen. He had served in the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and inadvertently formed a relationship with the polar region. In the following ten years, he planned and organized more than 1,000 young people to go to the Antarctic and the Arctic for scientific investigations.
"Scientific enlightenment should be used to use more vivid and interesting methods to allow teenagers to intuitively contact and feel, from shallow to deep, establish a scientific concept and framework to improve their understanding of natural science and life science."
01
2018, the youth scientific expedition team led by Ding Chen set off again. When the ship was about to shore Svalbard, the scene in front of everyone was shocked - a giant white whale committed suicide by rushing to the beach, and a bullish polar bear was enjoying a long-lost "food feast" in the shallows. Just arrived, I saw the species at the top of the two major food chains in the Arctic in this way. The teenagers on the ship were greatly impacted from their vision to their minds. In fact, since 2015, students have clearly noticed that polar bears have changed their foraging methods. You can often see skinny polar bears on the coast, with yellowing hairs, which are not the white and fat that I have known in TV and textbooks in the past. They were so hungry that they went to the cracks of the rocks to search for small crabs, gnawed on plants and turf, and sometimes they fought each other to seize food, and even attacked humans. And the "culprit" of all this is global climate warming . Every year, the youth scientific expedition team will go to Longyiel No. 1 glacier in the Arctic to collect samples at the same location and time to measure the local temperature. When the first batch of students went there, the measured temperature was -1℃. When I went again in 2019, the temperature has reached 19℃. In less than 10 years, the temperature in the Arctic has risen by 20℃! The rapidly rising temperature of triggered a series of chain reactions, which had a great impact on the ecology of the entire Arctic. First of all, the sea ice melts in large quantities. After melting into seawater, more sun heat radiation is absorbed, which in turn accelerates the melting of the ice. Now, the area of Arctic floes has shrunk by one third compared to 1970. This is undoubtedly a catastrophe for polar bears that need to be preyed with ice. It needs to lie on the ice and dig a hole in front. When the seal pokes out of the hole to breathe, it quickly slapps the seal with its sharp claws, then pulls the seal up and eats it. The polar bear has a very sensitive nose and can smell seals 8 to 10 kilometers underwater through the ice.The ice area before is only forty or fifty kilometers away from the coastline. The extreme record of polar bear swimming is 102 kilometers. Under normal circumstances, swimming 60 or 70 kilometers is not a problem, and swimming to the ice area for predation is easy. However, two years ago, when the youth scientific expedition team went there again, they found that the nearest ice area was already hundreds of kilometers away from the coastline. This means that the polar bear may drown or be exhausted from overdrawing before swimming to the ice area. "The number of polar bears is currently less than 30,000. Some experts predict that by 2060, this species will become extinct." Moreover, a large amount of fresh water after the melting of sea ice is injected into the ocean, the concentration of sea water decreases, and the pH value changes. The microorganisms in the sea , fish and even the entire ecology will be affected, and none of them will be spared. The survival of Arctic animals has encountered unprecedented challenges. The living environment of Arctic plants is also harsh. 02 Polar animals and plants also "club" After observing the freeze-thawing phenomenon, the child won the science and technology award Before he arrived in the Arctic, the students thought there was only a white area there. After I went there, I found that not only have more than a hundred kinds of plants in Arctic Circle , but most of the flowers blooming in the shape and color of the flowers are very beautiful. "It looks good to attract animals such as reindeer , snow rabbit, small fox and other animals to eat, so as to dip the plant seeds on the animals and take them to various places. Animals are equivalent to a carrier for plant pollination and transmission." Of course, animals are not "in vain to help". Flowers in the Arctic usually have the characteristics of sun-facing growth and can be used as "compass". Therefore, when reindeer migrates, they rely on Tiger Eargrass to identify the direction. Arctic plants not only need to "club" with animals, but also "accompaniment" between plants. "The wind is strong and low in temperature in the Arctic. If plants grow in stones or soil, they are easily blown down by the wind. Some plants have short and underdeveloped roots and need to grow with moss, lichen and other companion plants to resist the harsh natural environment." In the Arctic, plants usually grow in permafrost. To "be a foothold", the root system needs to extend at least 50 cm under the soil, firmly grasping the frozen soil that will not melt underground. This is because there is a very unique freeze-thaw phenomenon in the Arctic: in winter, the water in the frozen soil will swell after it becomes ice, extruding out the sand, foreign matter, and hard objects in the soil; in summer, the ice and snow melt, the soil becomes soft, and without the support of hard objects such as sand, gravel, and the soil will be sunken. It melts and swells, year after year, the gravel that was turned out will be neatly formed into a ring on the outer circle. Under the influence of freeze-thawing phenomenon, the telephone poles of the Arctic Circle's human-dwelling towns are also neatly slanted in one direction. A student from the scientific expedition team was inspired to observe this phenomenon and immediately started research when he came back - he wanted to know how deep the telephone pole was to not be tilted. He used a large glass box to pack soil and stones, injected water, and made into mud; made the mud into a slope and inserted small wooden sticks of varying depths of 1 to 10 cm into the slope; tie each stick to a timer, and if the stick falls down, the timer will stop working. After setting up, put the entire device in the refrigerator for freezing. After the soil is frozen and hard, take out the box and melt the soil at room temperature. This alternation simulates the environment of Arctic permafrost. One month after the experiment, the student found that the stick with a depth of less than 2.5 cm inserted into the soil falls the fastest; beyond this depth, the time the stick falls will be longer, or even not fall. , the depth of 2.5 cm is equivalent to a turning point. The value of this turning point may provide important reference for large-scale projects such as railways and buildings in pile driving, foundation driving and other links - this research won the first prize in the "National Youth Science and Technology Innovation Competition" that year. Entering the polar world, what is opened is not only the child's scientific thinking , but also the new horizon of exploring and understanding life. 03 Antarctic penguins also run "kindergarten" Watching the cubs being eaten, humans are not allowed to interfere with "In the polar regions, all living things must help each other to survive. Just like the companionship of Arctic plants, Antarctic animals are also a symbiotic relationship. For example, Antarctic penguins are a completely socialized group." Antarctic penguins have more than one billion, which is far more than usual cognition. In order to survive in a limited habitat, they must divide their work and work together—especially in the case of natural enemies. Adult male penguins are responsible for preying and building nests. When they go to the bay to prey, a "kindergarten" will appear in the penguin community - driving the little penguins to a place, with tall penguins standing guard in the outer circle, and there are mothers of penguins responsible for taking care of and comforting the cubs. When building nests, male penguins need to go to the sea far away to look for fist-sized pebbles. Due to the difficulty in handling "building materials", nests are usually built relatively densely, with a spacing of about 40 or 50 centimeters. Such a structure is more convenient to resist the sneak attacks of skua gulls and do not leave them a place to stay. The most dangerous time for a penguin baby to be about one month old. Because it has the ability to move, it will run around the nest and is easily eaten by skua or other large birds and birds. Unlike when I was younger, I was protected under the fluff on my father and mother's belly; or, after growing for one and a half months, after changing to -fetal hair , I can go into the water to swim, so birds no longer pose a threat to it. When students were inspecting Antarctica, they witnessed skua hunting a baby penguin that was thirty or forty centimeters tall. The skua drove the little penguin from the nest to the beach step by step. At first, the little penguin's father and mother tried to rescue it, but as the skua drove the little penguin farther and farther, the adult penguin did not dare to leave the nest too far and could only give up. The little penguin resisted tenaciously alone for nearly two hours, avoiding everywhere, and finally failed to break free from the fate of being preyed. ▲Skua preys on the little penguin "This is nature, it must have its cruel side, it is also a kind of vision, a compulsory course for the education of life for young people." "The Antarctic Convention has relevant provisions that humans cannot directly interfere with polar creatures, including being unable to feed or protect them when they are attacked by natural enemies. Even if they are observed, a certain distance must be maintained." Ding Chen explained that the purpose of formulating these terms is to prevent animals from losing their predation ability, and to prevent animals from getting closer and closer to towns where humans gather. "That will bring greater threats." 04 Scientific enlightenment Let young people gain science and life enlightenment "Global warming", "reducing carbon emissions", "protecting wild animals"... are well-known and soundingly correct concepts. But if you only instill an empty idea in adolescents, it may always be overwhelming with concepts and will not trigger actions or practice. "The special geographical environment in the polar region is an excellent practice base, which allows young people to think about the natural environment, ecological environment, climate change, and the relationship between human civilization and the polar region from a global system perspective. Finally, teach children to do something scientifically." ▲Ding Chen guides the students of the youth scientific expedition team to conduct scientific research and practice in the polar region. The scientific examination content includes allowing students to collect fossils and rocks to understand the formation, geological structure and evolution of the polar regions. ▲The plant fossils discovered by students from the youth scientific expedition team in Svalbard, Arctic prove that Svalbard, Arctic used to be very warm and moist. ▲The students of the Youth Science Expedition Team used underwater drones to observe and sample underwater vegetation, invertebrates and iceberg gravel in the polar intertidal zone. ▲Youth scientific expedition team students conducted plant sample observations in Arctic tundra , counted the types and numbers of Arctic plants, and carried out plant diversity research Back from the polar investigation, students often continue to transform the results of the investigation.For example, a classmate from Beijing No. 8 Middle School, under the guidance of experts, wrote a paper with high completion and strong professionalism, and was selected as the "National Little Academician" of the Chinese Academy of Youth Sciences. Now, he is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan in the United States, and his research direction is polar microorganisms - in the Arctic and Southern Poles, there are extremely rich microbial species resources. Collecting microbial samples has always been one of the most popular scientific research projects for the youth scientific expedition team. "Because there is a high probability that new unknown species will be discovered, and we have also discovered three unknown polar species." Generally speaking, microorganisms that can survive in the polar environment have some magical functions. Academic Scientific Expedition Team once discovered a microorganism with radiation-resistant function that can resist 50,000mSv (mSv is a unit of radiation). You should know that if nuclear power plant leaks, the radiation may be from 10,000mSv to 20,000mSv; people live in an environment with radiation exceeding 0.1mSv or 0.2mSv, and may suffer from leukemia and cancer. "This microorganism may play an important role in the future aerospace development and even the immigration of the earth to outer space. For example, sprinkling radiation-resistant microorganisms on Mars , allowing it to transform the surface environment into a habitable planet for humans. This process is called Mars geoification." To this day, scientific research is no longer an unreachable exclusive territory for adults. Not only can adolescents make a difference, but they will become increasingly important players. "I hope to complete the scientific enlightenment of young people through polar education, lead young people to personally experience the operation and evolution of the earth system, explore scientific mysteries such as glaciers, oceans, biology, geology, and atmosphere, and obtain scientific and life enlightenment."
