Reduce, Reuse, Recycle at Shanghai Earth Day!

RBIS is a proud organizer of the annual Shanghai Earth Day.  Working together with the Chinese government and the Shanghai Zoo, RBIS produces an event giving voice to the environmental movement and encouraging world citizens to take responsibility for their impact on the environment. 

The theme of Earth Day 2008 was “Earth and Environment: Make a Change.”  More than 10,000 visitors joined us at the Shanghai Zoo where informative booths and festivities focused on educating people from China and the international community about the small changes people can make to positively affect the environment.   Our next Earth Day celebration, scheduled for April 25, 2009, promises to be just as eventful!

Each Earth Day, RBIS parent volunteers create informative cultural villages designed to reflect the unique customs of their native countries.  Traditional clothing and live demonstrations of handicrafts and other traditional practices—such as Japanese tea ceremonies, Korean robot design, Norwegian novelty photos, and Indian henna art—enhance visitors’ experience.  Students excitedly visit their classmates’ cultural villages, discovering more about their friends from around the globe.

Following the around-the-world cultural village tour, attendees may participate in seed planting, endangered-animal face painting, creating recycled fashions, and games of skill using reused and recycled materials.  A special change-make-change booth gives new life to unneeded clothing, toys, and books by making them available for purchase, with the proceeds and remaining items going to charity.  Earth Day activities put the “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” mantra into practice!

The Earth Day stage is the perfect platform for students to present all they have learned about protecting and preserving the environment.  Students and teachers take the stage together to present environmentally-conscious renditions prepared in the after-school drama program, and winners of the school-wide essay contest have a platform for reading their essays.  Throughout the day the stage is also host to traditional Chinese dancing troupes, specialty Filipino dancers and singers, and RBIS’s favorite band--The Sugarbeats. 

Earth Day enables RBIS students to contribute to environmental projects, promotes resourceful thinking and behavior, and kindles children’s understanding of environmental studies, civic responsibility, and our global community.  Join us at the Shanghai Zoo in 2009 for this grand event!