Shanghai, China – August 17, 2026 – The 15th Global Natural History Day— the youth natural science challenge global finals concluded successfully at Shanghai University in August 2026. This year’s event innovatively adopted a dual-city model between Yichang and Shanghai: individual category competitions were held at the Yichang Museum in Hubei Province, while comprehensive category exhibitions took place at Shanghai University. The event this year brought together 803 participating teams and 1,546 teachers and students from 17 provinces and municipalities across China and globally, creating an immersive, practice-oriented youth science event.
At the closing ceremony, Stephen P. Beinke, President of the Behring Global Educational Foundation, reviewed the fifteen-year development of Global Natural History Day since its inception in 2012. On behalf of the Foundation, he expressed gratitude to its partners for their efforts in promoting the sustainable development of natural science museums, and encouraged young participants to deeply experience the charm of the activity and gain personal growth through their exploration of nature.
Duan Yong, Vice Chancellor of Shanghai University, stated that the university has long been committed to youth scientific innovation education, actively assuming social responsibilities in youth scientific exploration, research practice, and science popularization, and focusing on guiding young people’s growth and cultivating future scientific and technological talents. He encouraged all participating teams to take this event as a new starting point and fully demonstrate young people’s unique insights and in-depth exploration of the mysteries of natural science.
Global Natural History Day is a non-profit public science activity for primary and secondary school students, co-organized by the Natural History Museum of China and the Behring Global Educational Foundation, with co-organizers from participating regional museums. Since its launch in 2012, the event has been held for fifteen consecutive years, attracting over 100,000 primary and secondary school participants in total. After fifteen years of refinement, the activity now features five major project categories and iterates around eight annual themes, establishing a tiered, comprehensive, and progressive system for youth scientific practice education. For year 2026, Global Natural History Day adopted the annual theme “Past, Present, Future — Exploring the Origins and Development of Innovation,” guiding students to take the temporal dimension as their primary line of inquiry, sort out the threads of innovation, summarize patterns of development, and uncover the logic of innovation.
Furthermore, building on the existing format of Global Natural History Day, a supporting science popularization resource — the “Science Box” — has been concurrently developed, providing standardized support for youth science practice activities in primary and secondary schools and communities. An online achievement display platform will also be launched soon. In the future, the event will leverage existing outstanding teacher-mentor resources and educators from various museums to continue expanding its coverage, thus to benefit young people in more regions.
About GNHD®
Global Natural History Day® (GNHD®) is a youth natural science extracurricular education activities initiated by Kenneth. E. Behring, the founder of Behring Global Educational Foundation since 2012, which aims to combine the comprehensive resources of these venues for the population of science to promote and enhance the exploration spirit of teachers and students in primary and secondary schools in natural sciences.
The activity defines a yearly theme for the category of natural sciences. Participating teams can create works to participate in activities by the category of “Exhibition” and “Performance”.
Media ContactCompany Name: GNHD®Contact Person: Ranky ChenEmail: Send EmailCity: ShanghaiCountry: ChinaWebsite: https://www.gnhday.net
