In agriculture age,people don’t have to worry about pollution. Because all the products are degradable. Nature itself is a great designer, everything can be reused and recycled. But as human entered the age of industry, the situation changed. Human want to create new stuff that never existed in natural world. Yes they made it but they are not born good designers; Many waste are produced but can not be recycled.
There is a simple logic. If human want live in earth forever, then everything should be recycled, otherwise there will be not enough resources or room for human beings.
China have made a miracle of economic growth, but the growth cost dear – air and water pollution, increasing gap between rich and poor, village and city, east and west. This growth also can not be sustainable because the environment is getting worse and worse and the resources is getting fewer and fewer. In order to live a healthy life, China must reconsider its style of economic growth and design more environmentally friendly industry,agriculture and living system. But do China have enough designers to design the eco-life system? It is questionalble. STEM education may play a crucial role in preparing these future designers in China.
If you look into Chinese secondary and primary curriculum, you will find there is little content of enginering or designing in their class learning activities. How to assess the curriculum content to tell if it is updated and suitable for preparing future citizens? How teachers address this problem in their classroom teaching? Is there a lack of designing education in our curriculum system? If not, is the content and education good enough for preparing our future designers? These questions matters for the future development of China.
