Whatever your institution’s learning objectives may be, WildChina is here to help. We believe travel and learning go hand in hand. Our STEAM program school trips are specifically designed with this value in mind. Whether you’d like to see the coastal views of southern China or stay overnight at a museum, we can make it work for you. The 4 STEAM program school trips to China we’d like to share with you today are the Sanya Sea Turtle Conservation, Chongqing STEAM Project, Coding for Community on Hengshadao, and Night at the Museum: Beijing.
Sanya Sea Turtle Conservation
The first STEAM school trip to China we’ll discuss today takes you to Sanya (三亚, sān yà), located at the southernmost point of China and is the best destination for leisure. Even though that’s not what your particular trip will be about, you’ll still get to enjoy the relaxing oceanic air. On day 1, you’ll meet your WildChina Tour Leader and check in to a 3- or 4-star hotel. After your Welcome Dinner, you’ll get to enjoy a viewing of a documentary titled “Turtle, the Incredible Journey.”
Day 2 will bring you and your students to a volunteer house for breakfast, after which you’ll go to a fishing village for the turtle conservation portion of your trip. Once you’re there, you’ll be introduced to your duties at the Floating Hospital. You will learn about sea turtle patients, including their names, histories, and maladies. Handling sea turtles and daily volunteer duties training will also be part of your introduction. This may be the most important part before your students begin their service learning activities. As creatures who help maintain seagrass beds and coral reefs, sea turtles are integral to marine ecosystems.
After lunch, you will have some free time to rest, which you will most likely need after your international flight the previous day. In the mid-afternoon, you’ll meet at the volunteer house again and go to the hospital for a presentation on General Sea Turtle Biology and a hands-on sea turtle ID activity. After dinner, your students will participate in a game of sea turtle biology jeopardy!
Day 3 of your school trip to China will start the same way. Your students will then conduct their duties at the hospital and have another presentation on sea turtle conservation. After your lunch break, you’ll change into bathing suits for a fun afternoon! You’ll meet at the volunteer house for a presentation on sea turtle lifecycles and go to the beach on Monkey Island for a sea turtle lifecycle beach activity. For the rest of the afternoon, you will be free to swim in the ocean before having dinner with your host families in Fishing Village.
The next morning, you’ll have breakfast in your host family’s home, meet at the volunteer house, and listen to a whale shark biology/conservation presentation. Not only will you learn about them, but you and your students will also get to physically go out on boats to see whale sharks! The afternoon on the fourth day of your school trip in China calls for a presentation on sea turtles in their ecosystems. You and your students will then head to the hospital for a turtle bath, measurements, and weights session. That night after dinner, you’ll get to enjoy a nighttime beach walk. The final day of your school trip to China includes some more sea turtle caretaking before we say our goodbyes.
Chongqing STEAM Project
Chongqing (重庆, chóngqìng), China, is a city filled with vast geological diversity. Our Chongqing STEAM program actually includes three focus areas, cave exploring, geodiversity survey and water testing, and flora and fauna deep dive. On the first official day after your arrival for your school trip to China, your WildChina guide will take you to the Nanquan greater area for an Opening Ceremony and Orientation. You’ll wander in the landscapes of Chongqing with an orienteering and hiking activity, and in the nighttime, you can stargaze to your heart’s content.
The next day, your WildChina guide will bring you to the caves to learn about the formation of rocks. You will also take part in a rock identification activity as you explore the dark caves. In the afternoon, your students will collect water samples from both inside and outside the cave to look at their biological differences. You’ll get to go canyoning the next day after camping out that night. Camping is a staple activity in many of our school trips to China.
As part of the geodiversity survey and water testing focus, your students will get to participate in a scavenger hunt at the Healthy Herbs Workshop. You’ll also get to meet our forestry expert/environmental protection researcher, who will teach you about Chongqing’s plant diversity. To complete the geodiversity survey portion of your school trip to China, we will give your students a map to use as a reference for soil sample collecting. The soil samples would range from forest soil, to farmland soil, etc. Your students will get to compare the biological differences of the soil samples under a microscope. For a fun afternoon, you’ll go biking while enjoying the natural scenery of the area. We have a shelter-building and fire skills workshop for students who can’t bike. We will end the day with a board game session.
The next day on your school trip to China will be relatively relaxing. You’ll start the morning with a water testing activity and an insect identification workshop. In the afternoon, you will set up camp and take part in outdoor-themed teambuilding games. Before you fall asleep in your tents as the moon rises, we will have an outdoor movie night. After such a laidback day, we know you’ll be looking forward to an action-packed day ahead, which is just what we have planned. We have a few options for how you will start the next day: a belaying course, an abseiling high ropes course, or traversing a via ferrata route. For the rest of the day, your students will have a raft-building activity and even get to race in their own rafts. You will end the night with a BBQ party. On your last day, you will get to enjoy a kayaking program.
And now onto the flora and fauna deep dive. For this portion of your school trip to China, you’ll transfer to the 3 gorges area for a flora and fauna identification workshop and a hiking session. That evening, you’ll get to take part in a night forest exploration expedition. The next day on your school trip to China, you’ll have an Ecological Preservation Workshop. Students will meet conservation professionals for a Q&A session on the relationship between tourism and ecological preservation. During this leg of your school trip to China, you will also camp out and have a bird-watching and bird nest-making workshop the next morning.
Coding for Community on Hengshadao
This particular STEAM school trip to China focuses on outdoor team building and sustainability. It is also linked to UNSDG’s Sustainable Cities and Communities and Responsible Consumption and Production. Once you arrive in Hengshadao (横沙岛, héng shā dâo), your WildChina guide will greet you with a Welcome Dinner and an orientation.
On the first official day of your school trip to China, you’ll get to do some fun kayaking in nature. You will then help your host families with some farm work. Your students will start their Coding for Community Project, which includes lessons on prototyping, wireframing, and developing their own sustainability-related digital platforms. Your students will start by brainstorming ideas about tech/digital properties that would be most beneficial to the area. They’ll get to take part in a simulation of working in a real-life digital services company, gaining an understanding of how to drive a digital project from idea to finished product. Specifically, your students will learn about mobile and desktop layout creation, HTML elements and structure, text editors, basic CSS classes and stylesheets, basic HTML syntax, etc. For students who produce outstanding and well-executed project ideas, WildChina will provide longitudinal support via mentorship and networking.
Activities you’ll get to enjoy on day 3 of this school trip to China are Chongming local cake making, a tie-dye and painting workshop, a village walk, and a bonfire party. Students will present their coding for community projects on day 4.
Night at the Museum: Beijing
The final STEAM school trip to China we are discussing today is called Night at the Museum. If you’ve ever had a dream to stay in a museum overnight after watching the 2006 film, you’re in luck! This itinerary was originally designed simply as a one-night trip for domestic schools, but we’d be more than happy to include this in a longer trip for you! This trip will take place at the Paleozoological Museum of China (PMC) (中国古动物馆, zhōng guó gû dòng wù guân). We’ll arrive there at 6:45 p.m. for a program briefing. You’ll make a 4-wing Raptor Dinosaur with plaster and go on an evening tour with a museum expert at 8:00 p.m. After a treasure hunt, you’ll watch a 3D movie about dinosaurs and the lights will be out at 10:00 p.m. After breakfast the next morning, your students will have a reflection session.
Reach out to us today!
Our award-winning guides and Academic Managers are here to take you through each activity and experience, linking them to your learning objectives. We can always adjust activities and itineraries based on your academic needs. Don’t just take our word for it, we have been privileged enough to work with top institutions including Harvard, Stanford, and Columbia. If any of the above STEAM program school trips to China align with your school’s curriculum, we’d love to hear from you to answer all your questions.
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Sources: 4 STEAM Program School Trips to China
- STEAM Exploration in Chongqing_web.pdf
- Coding for Communities – Hengshadao 4 days – Shanghai.pdf
- STEM – Biology – Sanya Sea Turtle Conservation – 5 days.pdf
- Night at the Museum.pdf
- https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/sea-turtle
