As this year’s Roots & Shoots International School Summit draws closer, the summit offers a great opportunity for students to engage with their mentor, Dr. Jane Goodall in person.
The blogs from the last couple of weeks focused on the projects of the Beijing City International School and the International School of Beijing Roots & Shoots groups.
This week’s blog spotlights Yew Chung International School (YCIS) Roots &Shoots Group and the host school, Western Academy of Beijing (WAB) Roots & Shoots Group.
YCIS R&S Group has a lot of students with creative and unique ideas. To help spread awareness about the No Shark Fin Campaign they held a Green Couture fashion show for high school students. At the show, they used sustainable materials to design their own clothes and students proudly displayed them. There was also dancing, musical performances and guest speakers from the Roots & Shoots Beijing Office. In the end of the day they raised RMB 2, 000 then donating it to Roots & Shoots where it will be directly used to help support environmental education throughout China.
The students also organized many other activities to help the environment and animals. For example, they started a recycling initiative where they put different bins into the class rooms to make their schoolmates separate their trash. They have also been holding vegan bake sales, raising awareness about the impact of meat consumption on the environment and public health.
The R&S Group of WAB is excited to be hosting the summit, as they are also celebrating the 20th anniversary of the 1st R&S group in China, beginning at WAB in 1994. Their group, divided into three separate groups by school level, High School, Middle School and Elementary School were involved in this year’s spreading of environmental awareness. Their main project was the CleanUp Duck Lake campaign. The WAB campus lake, once, was very polluted by waste water from the local community. Their campaign raised community awareness of the efforts to keep the Duck Lake environment clean by methods such as scientifically testing the water quality, investigating the origin of the sewage and seeking strategies to prevent more local sewage lines into the lake.
Projects that were also designed to keep the environment clean were the Greenhouse and Recycling project. Both were led by Elementary School students who were very dedicated in helping the environment.
The R&S Middle School Group focused more on animal related problems. One project that is annually organized is the Wildlife Calendar. Students take pictures of different wild animals, pets or landscapes. Afterwards, these photos will be united into one calendar, selling them to raise money for different charities.
Another project is the Bird and Plants of Duck Lake campaign. WAB R&S conducted professional research about the different species living in the Duck Lake environment, publishing the results on a board which will inform the community about the birds and plants and showing the value of the lake.
In about three weeks the event will be held at WAB. The Roots & Shoots office is very excited to see the different projects and to get to know all Roots & Shoots friends!
Roots & Shoots is an international hands-on environmental and humanitarian education program that is about making positive change happen – for the environment, for animals and for our communities. Started in 1991 by Dr. Jane Goodall and a group of Tanzanian students who wanted to make a difference in their community, R&S is now a growing global program based on the principle that everyone has the ability to bring about change. For more information, visit our website www.genyuya.org.cn/en/
Photos: Courtesy of WAB and YCIS R&S groups
