In order to enhance the social influence and improve the quality and training of graduate students, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) held the 2023 Summer Camp for Outstanding College Students between July 29 and August 8. It is the 11th time for XTBG to holding this kind of summer camp. 88 outstanding students from 49 universities gathered together here.
At the opening ceremony of the summer camp, the students sang the XTBG song “Our Garden, Our Home” in chorus. Afterwards, Prof. Yang Yongping, director of XTBG, expressed a warm welcome to all campers and gave a brief introduction of XTBG concerning history, status quo and future goals.
15 teachers presented interesting lectures to the participating undergraduate students, which aroused their interest for study. The lectures covered such topics as social learning of honey bees, cognition and reproduction differences in jumping spiders, adaptive evolution of insects, ecosystem functions, plant nutrition, plant genomics, biodiversity conservation, phylogenetics, etc.
Scientific training camp was the new program in this event. The campers were divided into groups to finish their small research projects. Their projects were related to global change, plant-animal interactions, co-evolution, co-existence of species, tropical plant resources development and utilization, etc. Participants cooperated with each other and presented their results.
At the summer camp, the participants had pleasant, practical, and meaningful experiences through academic salon, laboratory tours, field trips, night adventures, and other activities like volleyball, basketball, Frisbee contest, etc. Through face-to-face communication with graduate supervisors, the students had a better understanding on XTBG and somewhat helped them to decide whether to have further study here.
At the closing ceremony, CPC secretary Gan Fanyuan and Prof. Peng Yanqiong congratulated the students and issued certificates of completion for them. Some student and teacher representatives shared their feelings.
The summer camp aimed to build a platform for outstanding young students to have close contact with and know more about XTBG, create opportunities for in-depth learning and exchanges, attract more excellent graduate students to study in Xishuangbanna, and further improve the student source and training quality.
Key speakers at the summer camp.
Scientific training camp.
Participants pose for a group photo.
