Family Planting on 11/12/2016

Hwan in action

On 11/12/2016, our RRP members, Muskaan and Hwan, led a successful planting project alongside with RRP supervisor, Mr Hunt. Three trees are planted in the lovely garden of the Chair-Elect of UWCSEA Board of Governor, Mrs Anna Lord's residence.

Muskaan having a great time 

Thanks to Nicholas, Mrs Anna's husband, the planting work was completed smoothly. The trees planted were:

Saga (Adenanthera Pavonina)
Hopea odorata
Javanese Plum(Syzygium cumini)

They also took the opportunity to check on some trees planted a few years ago at the Grey Family Home nearby in a previous planting project. One tree was sadly lost in the drought but it was good to know that the other two planted are growing healthily! 

from the left: Hwan, Mr Nicholas Lord, Muskaan with their proud Saga sapling!
Apologies for poor quality photo 

Meridian School visits Rainforest Restoration Project - by Maria Fernanda (Mafe) FARIAS

"As a child, one has that magical capacity to move among the many eras of the earth; to see the land as an animal does; to experience the sky from the perspective of a flower or a bee; to feel the earth quiver and breathe beneath us; to know a hundred different smells of mud and listen unself- consciously to the soughing of the trees."-Valerie Andrews


Last Thursday, November 10th, UWCSEA East campus  received middle school visitors from Meridian School, Pasir Ris. A group of fifteen enthusiastic children and three teachers came to our roof top Tree Nursery to learn about our Rainforest Restoration Project and in general, about the green world of native Singapore trees. We also received Nathan Hunt, our College Director of Sustainability, and Ms. Erin, our Primary School Principal who joined us for some fun learning activities.



After introductions and presentations from the Meridian school, the children surprised us with a song they had prepared to perform with us. We all sang together cheerily Count on me by Bruno Mars and Happy by Pharrell Williams. What a great ice breaker!


Once divided into groups, the kids were learning about the Tree Nursery rainforest system while the other group developed creative activities with Nathan in order to interact with each other and some of the tree species names. Following this, curiosity lead to compelling questions which showed their inquisitiveness about rainforest tree restoration. To finish up, we challenged everyone with a friendly quiz on newly acquired tree knowledge, and with some laughs, we said our goodbyes to this lovely visit.


The opportunity of sharing our knowledge with these children who were so curious and full of energy, was absolutely indescribable. Looking at the faces of all those young kids interested in what we do, encourage us to be stewards of change and to help sustain our city (and our Earth), and enhance the current situation it is facing.


We are sure they learned throughout their visit, but we also did, now we’re motivated to continue working hard and we know that there are young generations that are worried like us about the future of our planet. Contributing to stop our environmental impact with the activities we carry out in our local service, is a good way to start the change we are planning.

Family tree planting

Six trees planted this morning by the Rainforest Restoration Project at a Dover parents' home. The Gibsons are long-time supporters of greening at Dover campus.  Great work in the rain from Sreylin and Tintié (our first member from Burkina Faso) and Hwan in organising.

Our thanks to the Gibson Family for hosting our trees!

The Gibson's home is in Alexandra Park in Singapore which is a conservation area of old Black & White houses.  Mr Gibson is also a very keen gardener so so we can be pretty sure our trees are safe in his lovely gardens!

Trees planted were :

• 2 * Chengal Pasir (Hopea odorata)
• Mango (Mangifera indica)
• Flame of the Forest (Delonix regia)
• Longan (Dimocarpus longan)
• Saga (Adenanthera pavonina)

Our Adenanthera pavonina finds a new home with the English family!

   
We wrapped up our East campus Rainforest Restoration Project service activity this academic year by planting our home-grown Saga (Adenanthera pavonina) tree species at the English family residence. Preparing the soil proved to be a challenge but it gave us a final opportunity to show off and apply their tree-planting skills! The tree also commemorates the loss of a well loved family pet. What a perfectly meaningful ending to our conservation efforts this academic year!

Congratulations to our new graduates!

Congratulations to the latest graduates of our Rainforest Restoration Project!

Saanjh Gupta, Sabrina Chui, Rohan Iyer and John Tallas of UWCSEA Dover were presented with their Certificate in Tropical Forest Restoration Practice this past week.

Saanj and Sabrina have been with the project for 4 years, gaining skills and knowledge on a long journey while Rohan and John joined in Grade 11 but got on the fast track by volunteering in their free periods on a Friday afternoon.

Our grads give Frazer Cairns a tour of the trees outside his office.

The four students were assessed on a range of technical knowledge of species, ecology and policy as well as practical nursery and field techniques and personal skills for campaigning and outreach.

Head of Dover Campus Frazer Cairns was suitably impressed with the students' knowledge as they conducted a tour for him of the 'signature' South East Asian trees we have planted in the new plaza. However Saanjh put it well when she told Frazer that "all of us in the project realise that the more we learn, the more we realise there is to learn!"  We remain real amateurs in the science of reforestation but luckily have been able to exploit the kindness and expertise of advisers such as David Neidel (Senior Research Fellow at Yale-NUS and parent volunteer) and Elango Velautham (Assistant Director Singapore Botanic Gardens).

So a special thanks to our experts for all their help and well done to our new graduates - we hope this is just the start of their lifelong commitment to native species reforestation wherever they end up!

Rohan, Saanjh and Sabrina (all of who achieved Distinctions level) with Frazer Cairns.
John Tallas not pictured, unfortunately  ill on the day. Get well soon John!

Another Miracle Tree planted at Dover Campus

George Arjun, Eugenia and Phi demonstrate a masterclass in planting

Rainforest Restoration Project Regulars planted out another Moringa Oleifera last week, right in the heart of Dover Campus. Moringa (from the Tamil Murungai) is unique tree with many amazing properties - a genuine superfood, water purifier and soil enhancer, it has spread from being a traditional component of SE Asian recipes to becoming a life-saver in the battle against Malnutrition in poorer regions.

Remarkably the tree can grow from a branch as well as from a seed. This one, and another in the boarding house garden were kindly supplied by Maths teacher Bridget Magee who needed to trim her own tree at home. Both have been looked after in the Rainforest Nursery and have rooted successfully so far.

Feel free to taste the (rather spicy) leaves if you pass by...they are very very good for you. Bollywood Veggies serves them as fritters, but let us know if you want them for your own recipe and hopefully we can harvest the leaves and beans soon. If we grow enough, this could be an ideal opportunity for some aspiring student entrepreneur to turn the leaves into very marketable Moringa products.....so whose up for starting the next Body Shop?