儿童创造力的培养和在人力资本积累中的规律：STEAM课程设计及对贫困地区儿童的远程连接

培养儿童的创造力是增加一国创新人才储备的长期解决方案，对科教兴国、人才强国和创新驱动均有重大意义。我们在前期的研究工作中，对创造力的形成过程进行了系统的文献梳理和分析，发现创新思维在儿童早期形成，因此创造力的培养需要在儿童时期进行。集科学、技术、工程、艺术和数学多学科知识于一体的STEAM课程被认为是可以提高儿童创造力的有效方法，并被我国和多个国家的教育部门所重视，但具体设计方案尚不明确。本项目拟在前期工作的基础上，设计一套符合中国儿童思维方式的STEAM课程，并在深圳5所小学开展STEAM教学计划。同时，我们还会将此课程录制成视频，让较落后的湖南省新邵县20所小学的学生学习。通过评估以上儿童创造力、认知和非认知能力的变化，重点探讨儿童创造力的培养模式、课程低成本推广的可行性。本项目将为如何培养儿童创造力以及理解创造力在人力资本积累中的作用机制和规律提供科学的依据。

Nurturing children's creativity is a long-run solution to arouse innovative labors for the country in the long-run. It also underlies the ground of the strategy of revitalizing China through science and education, strengthening China through talent, and increasing economic growth through innovation. In our previous studies, we broadly review the literature and establish that it is necessary to equate creativity for young children when creativity is highly malleable. The STEAM course represents five concepts that are science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics. There is the belief that students educated in STEAM subjects tend to exhibit creative thinking. STEAM gains emphases by education policymakers in China and other counties, but less is known about how to design courses for STEAM education. On the ground of our previous works, we manage to design a STEAM course for Chinese children and teach pupils in 5 schools in Shenzhen. We also create a video version of the STEAM course, playing it for rural children in 20 elementary schools in Xinshao county, an underdeveloped area in Hunan province. By assessing the evolution of children's creativity, cognitive and non-cognitive abilities before and after the experiment, this study focuses to find an effective way to shape children's creativity and whether the method can be spread at a low cost for children in undeveloped areas. Overall, this research will propose scientific underpinnings to nurture children's creativity and understand the functions and rules of creativity in human capital accumulation.