The Native Soil Education Project (NSEP) was RCEF’s first opportunity to explore the possibilities of putting our educational ideals into practice in the formal education system and in close collaboration with local schools. We partnered with Green Watershed and Brooks, two NGOs in China, and collaborated closely with the Bureau of Education of Lashi Hai Township where the project was implemented. This project is providing “native soil” educational experiences on the theme of environmental conservation and ethnic culture for students and strengthening the capacity of local schools to develop and use “native soil” teaching materials.

Lashi Hai township is an ethnic minority township. It is situated in the Lashi Hai Watershed, which is one of the few highland wetlands in the nation and has rich biological and cultural diversity. A combination of a hydraulic engineering project launched in 1999, ineffective government policy and mismanagement of water resources has led to the flooding of farmland, devastation of local livelihood and destruction of the watershed ecosystem. Local communities were left poverty stricken and disadvantaged groups such as minority women were most heavily impacted. In recent years, local villagers have met success in improving water resources management with the support and organization of a local NGO, Green Watershed. In such a context, we aim to foster children’s appreciation of their home, its culture and its natural environment, guide them to make sense of the drastic changes that have recently occurred in their hometown, and support them in developing the knowledge and skills needed to contribute to the sustainable development of their community. We are doing this through “native soil education” – education with communitybased objectives, content and materials that allows students to learn about their hometowns through active inquiry and exploration.

In November 2006, a team of 5 staff and volunteers from RCEF, Brooks and Green Watershed met in Lashi Hai. They worked with local teachers to discover rich cultural and natural resources of the community that could be transformed into a native soil curriculum. They received a lot of support from the Lashi Hai Nature Reserve. They also learned a lot from the elders of Lashi Hai Township who are full of wisdom about nature and sustainable ways of life. They were eager to tell stories about the township’s culture and history and bear witness to decades of ecological changes. After the trip, we developed a framework for a curriculum that could be used in the third and fourth grades.

The project team and local teachers spent the following months designing the curriculum and writing the textbook. We were able to work closely with the teachers in Lashi Hai in this process through a tremendous volume of speed delivery packages that we constantly sent back and forth as we gave each other feedback and revised each other’s work. After an initial draft was completed, the project team returned to Lashi Hai to hold a workshop with the teachers. They brainstormed how the curriculum could be implemented, shared concrete lesson plans based on the textbook, and discussed further revisions that were needed. The end result was I Love Lashi Hai, a book that tells the story of three local children as they explore the streams, mountains and forests of Lashi Hai, listen to the stories of their grandparents, celebrate cultural festivals and reflect on the past and future of their hometown. The story is accompanied by supplementary reading information, activity ideas and lovely illustrations, many of which were drawn by local people.

During the summer holidays, four volunteers from RCEF’s summer volunteer project worked as counselors for a summer camp for students in Lashi Hai. Local teachers were invited to participate and the camp was an opportunity to demonstrate to them how to implement participatory activities based on the curriculum. Local teachers started to use the curriculum in their classrooms during the second semester of this school year and we have received positive feedback from the schools.