Terratribes Beijing Adventure and Education School Trip Sept 2011

One of our latest trips was an educational adventure trip to Beijing. Our brave participants hailed from the Concordia International School in Shanghai, and were ages 12-13. The trip mixed the best of the city and the beautiful countryside outside of Beijing. The kids got the opportunity to learn a bit of the old way of farm life by working in a cornfield and turning corn into a delicious porridge that we enjoyed with our local cuisine for dinner.

One of the most exciting parts of the adventure was our 8km hike along the Great Wall of China, where kids had the opportunity to put what they had been learning in school into action. Our most adventurous part of the Great Wall experience included opportunities to abseil from the Great Wall, along with some teambuilding and education role-playing games to help teach them about cohabitation on our planet earth and the importance of how we use our precious resources.

Our city experience in Beijing was equally exciting and educational. Our guides took the group to have a true Tiananmen Square experience where they got to walk around and taste a very exciting piece of Chinese history. Along with our trip to the square, we also took the children to the Urban Planning Museum. This was a neat opportunity to apply what they learned during our role-playing experience and see just how essential it is for cities, countries, and the world to allocate our resources wisely.

One of the neatest parts of learning the history of Beijing was our experience in the Hutong neighborhoods of Beijing. These neighborhoods are the oldest in the city, and have a unique style and feel to them. We explored the neighborhoods with our very own guide, who played many characters in Hutong and Beijing history to teach the kids all about the exciting and colorful history that has happened in Beijing. The kids also had the opportunity to get out and do a little of their own exploring during our Hutong Scavenger Hunt. The children were accompanied by a guide and had to complete the challenges and navigate their way through the maze of the Hutongs in order to earn points and have fun. No adventure would be complete without some delicious food! In the Hutongs the kids got to take a fun cooking class to learn how to make traditional Chinese dumplings. We got a bit creative, and put a new twist on the shapes and colors of our dumplings, and ended the experience with a delicious dumpling feast.

Our capstone activity of the week was the Great Dragonboat Race at the Olympic Water Park. Teams of students had to work together to paddle their very own boat to the beat of a drum to race the other boats! The races were action packed for sure, and a fun team experience as well.

Beijing was all around exciting, educational, and very memorable for our students, guides, and teacher chaperones alike!