Journey of Sharing Nature Recap

(Group photo!)

Last Friday, DSC together with Shanghai Roots & Shoots invited our NYU Shanghai students to join a journey of Sharing Nature. During the event, students learned “Flow Learning Strategy” Coined by Joseph Cornell, raised the awareness of appreciating the beauty of the ecosystems, the animals around them, and continued to be engaged with the environment. Students went to the Century Park and immersed themselves with the environment under the guidance of mentor Rebecca from Shanghai Roots & Shoots.

The event consisted of four interesting activities. The first activity is Wind is blowing. This little game aims to let students feel the natural elements like the blowing wind, while at the same time helping the students to get familiar with each other by creating interesting interactions between them. 

 (50 little tasks)

In the second activity, students were paired up as duos. During this activity, students were asked to feel the tree selected by their partner with eyes covered and then find the tree they were feeling with. This activity gave students a chance using different ways to perceive nature, while abandoning the traditional way of observing with eyes. 

(“bites” on a leaf )

In the third activity, students were invited to join a scavenger hunt and get more involved with nature. Some objects with an amount of 50, a piece of red leaf, a small piece of bone… These easy tasks combined together and let the students take a glimpse of the world we are living in and how human activities are involved in.

(A beautiful scene in your mind)

For the last activity, it is the easiest one but also the most closely connected with the overall theme—show your partner the scene you liked most! How we can love nature is never the big tasks such as knowing every single creature, giving solid support to the endangered animals, but doing what we can do! Appreciate the natural wind, feel the warmth of today’s Sunshine…… This activity helped create a great opportunity for students to get close with nature and gave them an opportunity to feel nature from a different perspective. 

Let’s hear about how our students feel about the event:

Mei Guan :“…Walking into nature is really a healing thing. I really love the activity of feeling the big tree with my eyes closed. The rough bark tells the history of a hundred years and gives people inner peace.”

Songbo:“… The part that let us find kinds of particular things in the park impressed me a lot. We looked for red leaves, furry things, white flowers and so on. Although they were small things and were easily ignored, they were parts of nature…”

Rong: It’s really an interesting relaxation to get close to nature from school work and after midterms. The central park put on a whole new view of fruiting and as the starting of the end of year.

Jade:  “…Starting from breaking the ice part, the activity lets us all enter the state of interacting with nature in an easy way, and lead us to understand the environment around us in the way of searching and exploring. I believe that the yes program can continue to bring better things to students and children. experience!”

Jianing: “…When you put the blindfold on, only through the sense of touch to feel the trees and nature, you can notice the details that you normally do not notice… It is a great way for you to free yourself from the stress and discover the beauty of nature.”

(Students’ reflections via drawing on the poster cards)

Sarah Li , One of the mentors from Shanghai Roots & Shoots comment as: “We spent a pleasant afternoon with students from NYU Shanghai in Century Park. Under the theme of “Sharing Nature”, everyone followed the designed tasks list to find natural imprints. We also felt the whimsy and vitality of young people. This activity is also a new attempt for us, and we hope to use this as an opportunity to attract more students to join Shanghai Roots & Shoots, become our green mentors, and ‘share nature’ with children.”

This event is also a pre-workshop for recruiting mentors for the Yes Program facilitated by Shanghai Roots & Shoots.(Click to see the program details). If you are interested in becoming a green mentor and involve more with nature, please feel free to contact us!

Let’s Love and Appreciate the Natural Beauty!

Source：https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/9fR09uQo3fEgMo8or7yTjg

Author：The Dean’s Service Corps (DSC) of NYU Shanghai