On the morning of August 15, as the sun crept over the city, a group of students from SISU's Shanghai Summer School and CSC International Summer School boarded a bus headed for Chongming Island. They left behind Shanghai's towers and traffic for somewhere completely different—a place where fields stretch to the horizon and the air smells of earth and river. Their mission for the day? To see for themselves what it means to build a future that works with nature, not against it—through wetland conservation, farm life, and the quiet art of making things by hand.

Stop 1: The "Giant Panda of the Water"- A Sanctuary for Chinese Sturgeon

By 10 a.m., the group had arrived at the Shanghai Aquatic Wildlife Conservation and Research Center, perched at the southeastern tip of Chongming Island. It's a place that serves both as a refuge for rare species like the Chinese sturgeon and as a key research base for the Yangtze River conservation effort.

Inside, researchers guided the students past clear tanks where the sturgeon glided through the water—ancient creatures that have been around for 140 million years, since the time of the dinosaurs. Their fate is a matter of growing concern: the Yangtze estuary is where they return to spawn, a kind of nursery and maternity ward rolled into one. The students learned about breakthroughs in captive breeding and the progress of the Yangtze's ten-year fishing ban—a major initiative that Shanghai has been actively involved in.

Stop 2: Yingdong Village - A Taste of the Harvest

At midday, the group stopped for lunch at Yingdong Village, which bills itself as the first place on Chongming to see the sunrise. The village was built on land reclaimed from tidal flats, and today it stands as an example of how rural communities are turning to eco-tourism.

After lunch, they headed to the orchard. Summer was at its peak, and the fruit was ready. Dragon fruit, grapes—both sweet and bursting with color. Everyone picked their own, filling bags with what they'd gathered. Two kilos each, free to take home. By the time they walked out, hands sticky and spirits high, the orchard had given them more than just fruit—it had given them a good time.

Stop 3: Hands-On Heritage - The Art of Making by Hand

After the orchard, it was time to slow down. At the village's folk craft center, local artisans guided the students through the delicate process of making lily-shaped ornaments from Chongming's traditional handwoven cloth. Needle by needle, stitch by stitch, they pieced together not just a small keepsake, but a feel for something slower, older, and deeply rooted in the life of this island.

The trip was a classroom without walls—part ecology lesson, part rural life, part cultural immersion. By the time they boarded the bus back to Shanghai, the students had seen a side of China that few textbooks capture. And somewhere between the sturgeon tanks, the grapevines, and the sewing tables, something else had taken root: friendships that crossed borders and languages.

Source: Study at SISU