BEIJING, July 23 (Xinhua) -- Wandering through a temporary exhibition on lunar exploration held at the China Science and Technology Museum (CSTM), an 11-year-old boy surnamed Huang from north China's Hebei Province was still thinking about the virtual journey he had just taken.
"The VR exhibit showcased a future moon base. It felt so real," Huang said. "I hope I can go there one day."
Jointly staged by the CSTM and the China National Space Administration, the exhibition puts real spacecraft components on display, including a backup of the tailor-designed national flag once displayed on the moon's surface in 2020 by the Chang'e-5 mission, China's first lunar sample-return mission, a sample of the high-performance alloy dubbed "Chang'e steel," and a commercial rocket engine.
It also offers an immersive virtual reality experience that lets visitors travel, from a researcher's perspective, to a lunar base in the year 2049.
"We heard the museum had this exhibition, so we brought our child here," said Huang's father, who marveled at how the younger generation has access to space science education resources that were beyond his reach as a child.
"When I was young, I had heard of the Long March rockets. Later, Yang Liwei went into space, and I felt China's space program was becoming more and more advanced," the father said. "Back then, we could only learn vaguely from the news that China had satellites and rockets capable of reaching space."
Yang was China's first astronaut to enter space in October 2003.
The experience of Huang's family captures a broader shift in summer science learning -- achievements that could only be followed from afar decades ago are now being turned into experiences children can access firsthand.
That shift is visible beyond Beijing. In Hefei, the capital of east China's Anhui Province, the Anhui Museum staged an exhibition that situates contemporary space exploration within the much longer history of ancient Chinese culture's observation and questioning of "heaven."
Running through Oct. 20, the exhibition brings together nearly 300 cultural relics and exhibits from 48 museums and research institutions. Ancient astronomical instruments are displayed alongside models of the Yutu lunar rover and China's space station, as well as lunar soil brought back by the Chang'e-6 mission in 2024 -- humanity's first samples ever collected from the moon's far side.
Animations, demonstrations of astronomical instruments and interactive installations at the exhibition help visitors navigate sophisticated subjects stretching from ancient timekeeping and celestial observation to modern deep-space exploration.
Unlike the exhibition in Hefei that connects present-day missions with centuries of skywatching, the Nanning Science and Technology Museum, in the capital city of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, places greater emphasis on participation. It is offering a "my space dream" summer camp that introduces children to the development of China's space program and allows them to experience simulated astronaut training.
Such programs are part of a wider effort to expand science learning beyond formal classrooms. At the CSTM alone, more than 220 exhibit demonstrations and educational activities are scheduled on an average day, covering subjects including spaceflight, chemistry and artificial intelligence.
China has placed greater emphasis on science popularization and education. Its Science and Technology Popularization Law, revised in 2024, places science popularization on an equal footing with scientific and technological innovation and encourages its integration with culture, tourism and other sectors.
According to the National Development and Reform Commission, China trains more than 5 million graduates in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics each year. Its science and technology workforce has surpassed 110 million people, according to a 2022 report from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Those figures describe the far end of the country's talent pipeline. Science museums operate much earlier in that process, turning major national projects and sometimes abstract scientific ideas into experiences that children can see, question and remember.
For Huang's parents, spaceflight was once a distant national story encountered through the news. On this summer day, their son stepped out of a virtual lunar base speaking not only about where China had been, but also about where he hoped to go. ■
