There are plenty of kinds of creatures living in the sea, which is a huge system. And the whole planet relies on the sea. However, according to the recent report, our ocean is being destroyed by human behavior. So there is no doubt that it is really important to protect ocean. Shenzhen is a coastal city with a 257 kilometer long seashore rich in beaches.

Dameisha, which is one of the beaches in Shenzhen, has a 1,800 meter long beach, being surrounded by mountains. As the first free seashore park open to the public in Shenzhen, Dameisha attracts mountains of tourists. Because of the need of tourism, it has clear functional zones. This video directly shows the large amount of tourists in the beach several years ago.

However, because Dameisha beach is open to the public for free, the beach is always overcrowded especially during vacation. The average number of daily visitors can reach 40,000 and if it is a national holiday, it can top 100,000. This large amount of people makes this environment overwhelming. What’s worse, plenty of tourists have no idea how bad the influence is when they leave rubbish there on the beach or in the sea, which makes the water quality becomes bad. The interference of human also brings huge effect to the creature living in the sea.

I have watched some documentary films that show how the plastics destroy the ecosystem and kill animals. But this is just in the film until one day I realize that the problem becomes very serious and people just ignore it. I saw news talking about the divers in Shenzhen dive into the sea and get the rubbish out of the sea.

It occurred to me that compared with picking up garbage under the sea, why can’t people stop leaving rubbish on the beach? Nolet (2016) mentions in his book that “Unless we change the behaviors, the future of our own species and the many other species are in very real jeopardy.” There must be some changes. And in order to create the tourists’ sense of responsibility, an effective way is to begin from the children. Education for sustainability is what we need at this moment.

“Teaching for sustainability is the process by which teachers turn the broad conceptual and often philosophical ideals of education for sustainability into specific elements of effective teaching practice” (Nolet, 2016). This sentence in the book reminds me of the essence of the education for sustainability. The content that we are going to teach should make students easily understand and really can bring changes to the environment. Through some simple activities, children can learn a lot. In addition, I think an efficient way of education for sustainability is to take children out of classroom to really see this world. By seeing the real situation of this environment, they can realize how important it is to live in a more sustainable life.

So my partners and I design a program, aiming to teach children how to classify the rubbish and recycle what we can use. This is going to be a place-based learning and the activities will be held on the beach. The program is divided into three sessions.

First, there will be an exhibition, showing the challenge that the sea is facing and delivering basic knowledge of recycling. Then there comes a game for children to clean the beach. As Lee and Williams (2009) say in the article, “Traditional Chinese cultural forms are important components of the environmental education of young children.”

Therefore, we think that it is a good way to make students learn the knowledge in the form of traditional Chinese culture, such as paper cutting and so on. As a result, children will be taught to turn the recoverable into some hand crafts in the third activity. We hope that children can get the qualities such as basic knowledge of the ocean, sense of responsibility, communication skills, collaboration skills, observation skills and eco-friendly life style after these activities.

Morgan (2012) said in the article that “Just as Sustainable Development and Education for Sustainability are contested concepts, educators in the broadest sense of the term need to be critically aware of the implications of their practice both locally and globally.” The environmental problem is all over the world, but different regions may have some specific problems. Place-based learning is a kind of targeted pedagogy.

It focuses on the local issues. However, it is also necessary to teach students the universal theories or knowledge that they can apply to somewhere else as well, so it is very significant that teachers can not only focus this moment and this area but also have a look at the future and in a more global perspective. There is also one more sentence which inspires me a lot in the field of education for sustainability. “No one perspective will provide the solution to the complex issues that will be encountered, so collaboration and dialogue giving rise to multiple perspectives will be crucial.” (Morgan, 2012) The environmental problem is not that simple any more.

Educating for sustainability is not only a lesson being taught in the classroom for students to learn some basic knowledge. During this process, it is also crucial to develop some other skills of students. For example, students can also learn the collaboration skill, the communication skill and so on. Environmental problem is not a personal issue, so it needs people to work this out together.

Although there are some problems of the environment in Shenzhen, citizens and governments make efforts to improve the situation, and now this city becomes better than before. This is a video showing the current situation of the sea in Shenzhen.

References:

Morgan, Alun. (2012). Inclusive Place-Based Education for “Just Sustainability”. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 16, 627-6), p.627-642.

Nolet, V. (2016). Educating for sustainability: Principles and practices for teachers.

Williams, M., Lee, John Chi-Kin. editor, & SpringerLink. (2009). Schooling for Sustainable Development in Chinese Communities Experience with Younger Children (Schooling for Sustainable Development ; 1).