As one of China’s most beautiful provinces, water rich Sichuan has a vested interest in keeping its environment clean, and have been well known for having residents willing to improve conditions on the ground.

In the article Water schools shed light on degenerating Yangtze, an interesting (and young) program that seeks to educate about the importance of water and empower students to be the change is highlighted:

The Chinese program supervised by the SISC, with Ministry of Education and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as its partners, has covered more than 50,000 students from 27 middle and primary schools in Sichuan and the adjacent provinces of Qinghai and Yunnan, as well as Shanghai, where Yangtze meets the East China Sea.

Not just a simple academic exercise, the students are taking outside the classroom to conduct field monitoring surveys, and have even developed proposals for local officials to consider:

Based on further investigations in and around Piankou Town, Sun and his classmates proposed in a written letter to re-arrange the 15 dustbins along the two major streets “in a more scientific way” and establish a rubbish disposal system.

To their great surprise, the town government approved their proposal, and a sewage treatment plant based on the scientific principles of a biological wetland is also under discussion.

Perhaps more important than the 15 dustbins, is the fact that the 50,000 students who have gone through this program. A program that is educating and empowering students at a young age to investigate and make proposals that will improve their local environment.

It is one of those programs, like “reduce, Reuse, Recycle”, that will take time to be fully measured, however if this program can continue to make this link in 50,000 minds that trash on the river banks is a bad thing, and that they can do something to change that, I can only view this program as a good one.

to Learn more about this project, you can visit the UNESCO project release here, or visit their China Water page here.