Mother Nature beckons students to get their noses out of textbooks
We sit in classrooms and study nature in textbooks. That's an oddity, when you stop to think about it, when outside the school windows, biodiversity is there in all its splendor for us to go out and observe.
Some education authorities in China are now realizing that spoon-feeding nature to students through books just isn't good enough and that studies in the natural sciences aren't given enough prominence in the curriculum.
Last month, Shanghai Loushan Middle School became the ninth in Changning District to build an outdoor habitat garden.
Students receive natural education in the habitat garden at Shanghai Loushan Middle School in Changning District.
"Students can study natural science as it really exists," said Su Jianghua, chief science and technology teacher at the school.
The 200-square-meter garden is eco-friendly. No pesticides or herbicides are used. Food, water and shelter are provided to attract insects and other animals, Su said.
In February, when work on the Loushan Middle School garden started, teachers and students planted over 200 plants in two hours. Su said she was amazed by the enthusiasm of the students.
"It was very cold at that time," she said. "We never thought that they would complete 80 percent of the construction work on the first day."
The construction was guided by the Forest City Studio.
"We have used a variety of native plants in the garden, such as balloon flowers, Chinese violets and the perennial herb orchid grass to create a suitable environment for local fauna in Shanghai, especially pollinating insects," said Guo Taoran, head of the studio.
Student enthusiasm has indeed been sparked by the project.
A student measures the size of a sapling with a vernier caliper for a survey at Shanghai Loushan Middle School in this August file photo.
"Now spring is here and leaf shoots are beginning to sprout, I feel very proud to have been part of this," said Mao Jiachen, a ninth-grade student. "Although I will be graduating soon, I hope we have created something meaningful for the younger students."
He added: "I may not major in biology in the future, but through these activities, I have come to appreciate the beauty of nature and the need for its protection. They will always be important factors in my life."
Among other things, Mao said he learned about plant habitat. For example, azaleas that beautify areas around the school aren't native to the plains of Shanghai; their natural habitat is cooler mountainous areas of China.
And many palms around the school weren't planted by people, but rather were propagated by seed droppings from birds eating fruit.
"It's a wonder of Mother Nature," Mao said.
Students plant flowers at Shanghai Loushan Middle School in February.
To permanently preserve information on various plants in the garden, a Chinese language teacher and her son volunteered to create an electronic map of the distribution of plants.
Outdoor nature education dovetails with the city's efforts to enhance biodiversity conservation. Municipal authorities say that by 2035, the proportion of ecological areas in the city will equal about 60 percent of land area.
Guo said nature education is not just a matter of children memorizing the names of plants and animals from textbooks, but of developing in them critical, scientific thinking about the natural world that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives.
In the past several weeks in the Loushan Middle School garden, infrared cameras have captured birds collecting branch twigs for nest-building near the small pond, and even wild cats stopping for a drink.
During the construction in February, Guo Taoran (left), head of the Forest City Studio, explained to volunteers that the hollow would be full of water for animals at Shanghai Loushan Middle School.
Many other schools in Shanghai are also beefing up their nature education. Several "forest kindergartens" have been established in Shanghai, and some schools have invited zoologists and botanists to give talks to students outside the classroom.
Loushan Middle School has opened its nature education to the public, offering this year's first session of a habitat course in the new garden last week. It attracted more than 250,000 people online, said Zhang Jing, who works with the Changning ecological environment bureau and oversees the course.
Although the district now has nine habitat gardens, it's not enough, she said.
"The power of several habitat gardens is weak," Zhang said. "We want to integrate the concept of nature into all aspects of life here to form an ecological network."
Guo (left) introduces plants to students during the "Habitat Course" last week at Shanghai Loushan Middle School.
