What makes community service important for students? It benefits them in educational, professional, and personal aspects. Educationally, it helps students connect and apply their classroom learning to the real world. Community service also sets students apart when they apply for scholarships and/or universities. When it comes to students’ professional lives in later years, having community service on a resume serves as an advantage, especially as students will have less work experience. From a personal standpoint, working with diverse people increases students’ sense of social awareness.
Community Service School Trips to China
With China’s new covid policy opening doors for travelers, what better time to give your students a unique service learning experience? Bringing your students on a school trip to China adds an extra layer to a brand-new experience. Our team always tries to design school trips that hit more than one learning objective so that you and your students can get the most out of it. There are so many destinations that you could potentially visit, but we’ve narrowed it down to 5 community service school trips to China.
Biodiversity in Tianmu Mountains, Zhejiang
A renowned school trip location in Zhejiang may be Moganshan, but allow us to introduce you to a hidden gem, the Tainmu Mountains (天目山, Tiān Mù Shān). It is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so this is the place to see if you want to experience a truly mesmerizing cultural trip while helping out the community. UNESCO refers to the Tianmu Mountains as a biosphere reserve in which five unique specimens of a tree called Ostrya rehderiana live.
A trip to the Tianmu Mountains will help expand your students’ understanding of the environment and increase awareness of their impact. With the guidance of WildChina’s experts and Zhejiang locals, you can learn about the research being done to conserve these trees.
Aside from community service, our Tianmu Mountain school trip itinerary also brings your students on various wilderness survival-themed activities. Among these activities include plant identification, shelter building, raft building, first aid, and a 10-kilometer x 800m elevation “hardship hike.” In the early mornings, the tops of the Tianmu Mountains are easily enshrouded in fog, giving it a dreamy atmosphere. At night, the undisturbed area makes for a most opportune place for star gazing. Tianmu Mountain’s 1,200m altitudinal range means it is an astonishingly biodiverse area, which is not to be missed on your school trip to China.
Farming and Cleaning in Yixing’s Sea of Bamboo
Yixing (宜兴, Yí Xīng) is located in Jiangsu, which is right outside of Nanjing. Sea of Bamboo is simply Yixing’s name for their bamboo forest, which your students will help clean up as they take a hike through it. After enjoying a nice lunch at a local restaurant, your students will learn how to make Yixing black rice with local farmers. They will also get to try their hand at digging bamboo shoots, tea picking, planting vegetables, and harvesting crops.
In addition to community service, this trip includes sustainable development and outdoor education learning objectives. Just so you know, we can add any other objectives you want to include for your students on your school trip to China.
Water Conservation in West Lake and Qiandao Lake
West Lake (西湖, Xī Hú) and Qiandao Lake (千岛湖, Qiān Dâo Hú) are both located in Zhejiang. These two lakes are only a few hours’ drives away from each other, and we’ve put this trip together to help students gain a better understanding of public health and water preservation in China. Your students will also get to visit the Nongfu Spring Water (农夫山泉) plant and take part in DIY water filter workshops. On this school trip to China, you’ll start with a scavenger hunt at West Lake and have a welcome dinner there followed by an Impression West Lake show.
Qiandao Lake literally translates to Thousand Island Lake in English. Why is it named this way, you ask? The lake is a water reservoir that used to be a dam in a valley. To activate the dam, water was flooded through the valley, so Qiandao Lake is actually a man-made lake. Under this lake lies two ancient towns, Shi Cheng (狮城, Shī Chéng) and He Cheng (贺城, Hè Chéng), which our guides can tell you more about!
On your way there, you’ll stop at the Nongfu Spring Water plant to learn about the water purification and bottling process. Once you get to Qiandao Lake, you’ll work on a DIY water purifier project. At night, you and your students can take an optional walk along Qiandao Lake.
The next day is when your students will learn all about the water resource protection project. They’ll interact with locals, learn about public health in a rural village, and local public health in the Huang village. We’ll also take you on an exercise hiking route around Qiandao Lake. On your last day of this water conservation trip, you’ll visit the local office for disease control and prevention to learn about public health management in Qiandao Lake.
Farming in Guangzhou
This service learning school trip to rural Guangzhou will teach your students all about sustainable development and farm work. Huiling (慧灵, Huì Líng) is a charitable organization that helps people with mental disabilities live a normal life. Their work reaches more than 80 communities in 12 different Chinese cities. By the end of 2019, Huiling helped more than 1,800 people with mental disabilities.
At Huiling Farm, we’ll start with introduction activities including instructor introductions and learning the scientific terms for the day. We’ll do a DIY Italian lunch or BBQ and then help the staff with farming tasks. The staff at Huiling Farm are disabled, making this community service model one that improves the quality of life of this disadvantaged group.
Not only will seeding and picking fruits and vegetables help your students learn about the farm-to-table process, but they’ll also achieve a broader worldview by interacting with people who do not have the same privileges in life.
Battling Invasive Species in Shanghai
On this particular school trip to China, our wildlife experts will teach your students about how Shanghai is being transformed by non-native plants and animals, also known as invasive species. Your students will learn how the ecological system works and why it is vulnerable to invasive species. They will also learn about the role of biodiversity when it comes to decreasing the damage caused by invasive species and climate change. The learning objectives of this trip include outdoor education, service learning, and eco diversity.
To have some fun, we’ll start with paddle boarding or kayaking at a local lake. Through a community service project at a local village, students will learn about local wildlife conservation efforts as they dismantle illegal bird-catching nets. They’ll also learn to identify and properly dispose of Shanghai’s invasive species. If the weather permits, we can have an outdoor movie night.
Our guides will have students participate in a Geodiversity Survey where students are given a map, which they’ll use as a reference to collect soil samples from the area. They’ll also get to compare the different soils under a microscope. We’ll take students on a bike ride after that and have a board game night. Don’t worry, we have a shelter building and fire skills workshop for students who can’t bike.
The next day, students will learn about water testing and insect identification while continuing to learn about the invasive species in Shanghai. We’ll set up camp, do outdoor team-building games, and have another outdoor movie night. After the camping night, our wildlife experts will teach your students about the 7 LNT (Leave No Trace) Principles and how to alleviate the negative impact of invasive species in Shanghai.
From sustainable development to outdoor education to eco diversity, we’ve got you covered. Again, our team can develop customized itineraries for you based on any other learning objectives that you might want to include in your school trip to China. So, what do you think of these 5 community service school trips to China? We’d love to hear from you! We are reachable by phone or email. You may also contact us directly from our website to get a quote.
- https://thebridgeteencenter.org/news/the-importance-of-community-service-in-a-teens-life#:~:text=Through%20their%20service%2C%20students%20are,impact%20on%20their%20local%20community
- https://www.rappler.com/world/asia-pacific/china-covid-19-updates-january-9-2023/
- https://wildchinaeducation.com//2021/08/schools-in-china/#1-shanghai
- https://wildchinaeducation.com//tour/tianmu-mountain-adventure/
- https://www.unesco.org/mab/50anniversary/en/tianmushan
- https://wildchinaeducation.com//tour/community-service-in-yixings-sea-of-bamboo/
- https://wildchinaeducation.com//tour/water-preservation-and-public-health/
- https://voilachine.com/places/hangzhou/thousand-island-lake/
- https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/shi-cheng
- https://wildchinaeducation.com//tour/farming-and-service-in-huiling/
- http://en.hlcn.org/
- https://wildchinaeducation.com//tour/invasive-species-of-shanghai/
