writer: Project Leader Gao Huanrun

The children in Tuantian Central Kindergarten have recently been fond of running into the yard during their free time. A group of children gathers around a tree, chattering incessantly.

"This one is bigger than yesterday's!"

"The one on the left is still green!"

What are they observing?

It turns out to be a cherry tree laden with green fruits, not yet fully ripe, gradually transitioning from green to brighter hues.

As early as one month before Arbor Day, the project team had prepared cherry and bayberry saplings for a spring tree-planting activity in five kindergartens: Tuantian Central Kindergarten, Menglian Kindergarten, Tengchong No. 2 Kindergarten, Gudong Central Kindergarten, and Mazhan Central Kindergarten.

The cheerful chirping of birds harmonized with the children's beaming faces as big and small hands worked together to lift saplings into pre-dug pits. Once planted, the children eagerly covered the roots with soil. Soon, long-awaited water from buckets was poured into the earth as nourishment for the young trees. Through collective effort, rows of neatly aligned saplings now stand in the kindergarten, awaiting their fruiting season.

The project staff made a pact with the children to regularly water, weed, remove pests, and fertilize the saplings, returning to check their progress a month later. Throughout April, the five kindergartens' children tenderly cared for the saplings. When the project team revisited, the young gardeners enthusiastically shared updates about "their" trees. Their innocent reflections on this month-long stewardship brought both laughter and sighs from the adults.

"It's tiring to care for saplings, but imagining cherries makes me happy."

"I learned not to cut down trees randomly, and told my dad to stop too."

"I'll protect every tree I plant!"

This hands-on approach plants the seeds of environmental consciousness in young hearts. By allowing each child to develop personal understanding of nature conservation through direct experience, we cultivate more effective practitioners of low-carbon environmental education.

Project Introduction:

The Tengchong City Ecological Civilization and Low Carbon Life Education Project is supported by HPP Baltic, and implemented by HPP China, cooperating with the Tengchong City Education and Sports Bureau. The project provides support to 15 central elementary schools and central kindergartens in Tengchong City, establishes demonstration classes for demonstration lessons, formes ecological civilization and low-carbon life students' environmental protection clubs and organizes related activities, and together with the teachers of the school's science team explores future goals and curriculum for the experimental schools, with the aim of raising the environmental protection awareness and practical ability of teachers and students, and promoting the formation of a green and low-carbon life style.