18,000 students join Dagupan’s Children’s Congress
THE 2nd Dagupan Children’s Congress held Oct. 3 to 6 awed some 18,000 students from the city’s 31 barangays, particularly by the featured robots developed by local and foreign students.
The Children’s Congress – co-sponsored by the Department of Education, Department of Science and Technology, CSI Group of Companies and the Dagupan Sangguniang Panlungsod – incorporated this year the World Space Week 2011 that celebrated “50 Years of Human Spaceflight”, an event started in the former U.S.S.R. by Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.
Fourth District Rep. Gina de Venecia keynoted the Children’s Congress on Oct. 3 and lauded the efforts of Vice Mayor Belen Fernandez to continuously promote the welfare, well-being and education of children in Dagupan City.
On the opening day of the Congress, a tri-sectoral seminar attended by parents, teachers and children discussed the theme “Educational Awareness on Modern Technology threats: Saving the Kids. . .Strengthening the Families”.
Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas also the congress and called on children not to rely too much on computers as their parents and teachers are still their best guides for growth and development.
“Babalik at babalik pa rin tayo sa dati pag nagkaroon ng malfunction sa computer, like for instance when there is nuclear melt down,” he said.
He enumerated five “wells” that children can follow to keep them safe from people in social networking sites who have bad motives: Pray well, Study well, Eat well, Sleep well and Play well.
SOCIAL NETWORKING
Robby Manubay, an executive of Microsoft, also lectured on how children can avoid being exploited in social networking sites.
Lauding the DOST for bringing the Space Week celebration in Dagupan, Fernandez reminded her audience about what US Astronaut Neil Armstrong said when man made his first landing on the moon: ‘One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind’.”
She encouraged the city’s children never to be afraid to pursue their dreams “Your little step no matter how small will be an important step for Dagupan,” she said.
In the Space Week Celebration, the top guest was Christopher Go, an amateur astronomer from Cebu and a graduate of the University of San Carlos with a degree in Physics in 1991 who discovered on Feb. 24, 2006 the storm in planet Jupiter which was acknowledged by the National Aeronautics Space Agency (NASA).
Children were excited by the robotics exhibits of FELTA, E-Gizmo, Thinklab, National Instrument, U.P. Los Baños, ABS-CBN Foundation, ALEXAN, Dr. Yanga’s Colleges, Divine Word Academy of Dagupan and the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University of U.S.A.
There were also an Astronomy Exhibit and Mobile Planetarium Show, Star Gazing, and lectures on” Space Explorations and the Human Race”.
