How to treat China's successful application for the 24 solar terms?

At the 1 1 regular meeting of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Conference for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage, after deliberation, China's "Twenty-four Solar Terms" was officially included in the "Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity". At that time, large and small screens were full of moving pictures of festivals.

With the weakening of the function of the 24 solar terms in serving agricultural production, most of them show and entrust some emotions as a traditional culture, but the interaction with real life is not "warm". But in fact, in modern society, the 24 solar terms are by no means outdated "cultural products", and everyone can have some kind of "connection" with them more or less.

China's "Fifth Great Invention"

There is such a sentence in an annotation of The Book of Rites and the Moon Order: The climate came into being when the former Duke of Zhou formulated a time system and set 24 solar terms in 72 phases. Therefore, the word "climate" in China actually comes from the 24 solar terms.

Twenty-four solar terms are produced because in traditional agricultural society, agricultural production depends entirely on the weather. In order to have a good harvest, we must strictly grasp the law of weather changing with time.

In astronomical celestial coordinates, the earth's orbit around the sun is called "ecliptic" and the earth's rotation is called "equator", and there is an included angle of about 23.5 degrees between the ecliptic plane and the equatorial plane. Therefore, the position where the sun shines directly on the earth is different throughout the year, which leads to seasonal changes. In ancient China, sundials were used to measure the length of shadows. The longest shadow day in a year is the winter solstice, and the shortest is the summer solstice. In spring and autumn, one day night and day are equal. These two days are the vernal equinox and the autumn equinox. It was not until the Qin and Han Dynasties that the twenty-four solar terms were fully established. The earth revolves around the sun at an angle of 360 degrees every year, so it turns 15 degrees every half month on average, and accordingly a solar term is ushered in.

Sowing in Qingming, transplanting in Grain Rain. The ancients used the 24 solar terms to manage farmland cultivation and calculate the growth and development stages of crops, which ensured a basic harvest and solved the top priority of eating.

But today, more than two thousand years later, the role of the 24 solar terms in guiding agricultural production has been minimal. Lin, a researcher at China Institute of Meteorological Science, explained that this is not only because modern meteorological forecasting technology is more scientific, but in fact, the 24 solar terms have been limited since their birth.

Most importantly, picture books leave room for children to participate in each other. Through scientific experiments such as filling calendars, drawing temperature, measuring sun shadows, raising silkworms and watching solar terms in Beidou, as well as traditional skills such as laying eggs, making zongzi, weaving egg bags and making lotus lanterns, children can return to the fields and follow the clues of time to observe, experience, love and create spontaneously.

The 24 solar terms give us an opportunity to get in touch with nature and try to challenge the old educational model. On Gao Chunxiang, its practical value exceeds our previous understanding of this culture.