“Since when has bamboo been green?…” If city children only know about bamboo through poems and books, the Green Classroom summer camp has brought them back to nature, touching bamboo trees and exploring different emotions in the pure natural space of the largest bamboo reserve in Vietnam - Phu An bamboo village.
Cherish nature
The children were divided into groups according to age and given funny names after a type of bamboo: Southern Bamboo, Plum Blossom, Yellow Stripe, Deer Eye, May Muoi… The youngest group was the Southern Bamboo (3-5 years old) who were independent and walked through the bamboo forest. They eagerly touched the bamboo stems, attentively listened to the guide: Dr. of Environment Diep Thi My Hanh talk about the characteristics of bamboo, the benefits of bamboo and then drew pictures to illustrate the differences between bamboo varieties.
“These houses will not need air conditioning because they are shaded by bamboo all day long. The house is also not afraid of storms because of the bamboo cover,” Quang Huy (7 years old) said about the painting.Houses under the bamboo shadeof the Loc Ngoc group.
Somewhere in the garden, there were joyful shouts of delight as the children were shown by Gurgand, a French professor, the corpse of a cicada or a coiled millipede.
In the large, cool yard shaded by bamboo, the tiny farmers learned about the process of planting trees, how to loosen the soil, retain water for the trees and sow the sprouted mung bean seeds themselves. After the gardening session, the children understood how hard the growers had to work to have food for their daily use. “You have to hoe the land, sow seeds, cover with topsoil, water, sow seeds and then wait a long time for the mung bean plant to grow and produce beans to cook sweet soup. That means that to have a bowl of mung bean sweet soup, the farmers have to work very hard, so you need to know how to appreciate food and not waste it!”, Hong Anh (10 years old) advised her friends during the afternoon snack of mung bean sweet soup prepared by the teachers in the bamboo village.
Useful lessons
“Who among you has ever cut their hand?”, “Ever been burned?” “Ever had a nosebleed?”. With each question from the instructor, a series of tiny arms are raised to “show off” their first accident in life. This shows that children in preschool and primary school age are two age groups with high rates of accidents and injuries. Preschool age is the age when children start going to school, away from their parents. Primary school age is the age when they are curious, eager to explore, and easily attracted. But parents cannot follow and protect their children all day, or eliminate all risks around them. Therefore, SASCO green classes provide familiar knowledge to help children be aware of safety, proactively prevent and protect themselves, and at the same time instruct basic first aid in necessary cases such as: cuts, burns, nosebleeds, etc.
After class, the children came to conclusions that made their parents feel very secure: We can play in shallow puddles, but we must stay away from large ponds, lakes or rivers because they are dangerous; fire is dangerous but extremely important to roast a potato, cook a pot of rice; If you get burned, you should dip your hand in cold but clean water...
The most exciting games were the water passing and garbage sorting games. While the water passing game required smooth coordination among members to avoid wasting clean water, the garbage sorting game required specific tasks for each member to select the correct types of waste. Ms. Thu Thuy, the game leader, said the game aimed to teach children how to collect and sort garbage, to live more friendly and harmoniously with the environment.
Without setting too many criteria for children's summer camps, each summer, SASCO tries to bring children closer to nature. Under the shade of trees and fresh leaves, children are free to explore subtle feelings, vibrations before the beauty of nature and love their homeland and country more. Love for nature built from a young age will make childhood memories more beautiful and help children be more aware of protecting our green planet.
More information:
Green classroomis the theme of the 2019 children's summer camp of SASCO company at the end of June at the Bamboo Ecology Museum and Phu An Plant Conservation Area (Binh Duong). This is an annual activity organized by SASCO company for children of officers and employees to play and do outdoor activities in open space, fresh air to stimulate children to improve many skills for comprehensive development and to connect the feelings of officers and employees with the company.
