Xianghai Project Schools

Some students from Xianghai Elementary School participated in our summer camp in August 2006 at Xianghai Nature Reserve called “Tracking Cranes.” The summer camp gave them a deep impression on our mission to bring understanding of the migratory patterns of the Siberian Crane, so they were very happy to have us return to their school. The students who participated in our summer camp hoped they would be able to attend our activities once again, and those who were not at the summer camp were hopeful to become involved in our lessons and activities. The teacher from Xianghai Elementary School didn’t get training from

our project, but he was still able to teach his students about “The Way that Huolin River Flows” by explaining the book and its relationship to Xianghai. As he was teaching, sparks were flying from both the teacher and his students because of their excitement about the material. The teacher didn’t have any maps to use but improvised by drawing maps on the board to explain to his students the flyway of the migratory birds. Later in the class the teacher had his students participate in a very interesting game to understand the life of the Siberian Cranes. The students split into four teams and pretended to fly to different places where they would find papers explaining what the cranes would have to face in each place. Some of the students were very lucky and survived the game but others came to understand that the life of a crane is very dangerous because of unsafe habitats and had to endure many hardships throughout the game.

The teachers from Xianghai Middle School gave us a big surprise when they taught “The Way that Huolin River Flows” because some taught in English, some sang songs and others drew pictures. The students all watched with keen pleasure and relished the creativity of the teachers. The students sang many songs about the seasons of their homeland and shared with us their unique Mongolian minority culture by giving each visitor a traditional white silk scarf to wear. The students drew pictures of their homeland that expressed their love for the beautiful place they live –

their pictures showed the unique characteristics and natural wonders that surround Xianghai. Ms. Shi came up with the idea to have her students create sculptures of the cranes, they all came out very nice and looked like dancing cranes in the classroom.

Wulantala School is a school where many kids from far away attend from the age of 6 or 7. Because their homes in the countryside are very far away, they live at the school during the week and only return to their homes on the weekend. The school's teachers are excellent and take an extreme interest in the lives of their students. Mr. Wu is a teacher who can paint and draw beautiful pictures of horses, so he has helped his students to learn how to paint and draw very good and detailed pictures. The Vice President from the International Crane Foundation visited Wulantala School, making the children all very excited. They ran up to him wanting to meet him in person and take their picture with him. One boy used the English he had learned to say “Hello” to the Vice President, who then responded by saying "Hello" in Chinese, “Nihao.” From the pictures you can tell that there were many students surrounding their special visitor, but many more were surrounding him who could not fit in the picture. It looked like a sea of children welcoming their visitor to their school.