A unique learning environment
Bitou Elementary offers ocean-based outdoor learning during autumn and spring—at the start of the school year in September and October, before the monsoon winds arrive; and in May and June when the days become hotter and the seawater is not too cold. At these times, the school arranges for students go kayaking and snorkeling. Students also visit the famous sea erosion platform on the coast below the school. There they study the landscape and its ecology. On the day of our visit, Bitou Elementary and the Village of Angelic Children have arranged for a visit to the erosion platform for disadvantaged children from rural areas.
On this occasion the students are in the care of Sealion Wu, a retired teacher from Yonghe Elementary School. “Just now one of you asked me how come water flows out of the cliff face in some places but not in others,” says Wu to the children. “Who can tell me the answer?”
Wu introduces the students to the characteristics of sandstone and shale, handing them pieces of each to experiment with. “Sandstone is porous, so it bubbles when you put it in water, but shale doesn’t,” he explains.
Because sandstone is porous but shale is less porous, rainwater flows down through the sandstone until it hits a layer of shale; then, because it cannot go through the shale, it flows out of the cliff face.
Next Wu takes the students to observe creatures in the intertidal zone. “First you have to find a crab, and then spot a fish,” he tells them. “And then you can search for a new creature on your own.”
As soon as one is found, a student yells “Crab!” “This is a scaly rock crab [Plagusia squamosa],” says Wu, “but people around here call it the white-bellied crab because of the white coloring on its underside.” Wu uses the intertidal zone as a living classroom to teach the children to identify the varied lifeforms.
The third organism that the children find is identified by Wu as the pyramid periwinkle (Nodilittorina pyramidalis), a species of sea snail that lives in the intertidal zone. “Don’t disturb them though,” he tells them. “They are active only in the evening when they feed, and if you detach them from the rocks and deprive them of their perch, they will die.”
Through these questions and answers the students are able to learn first hand about the natural world.
Aside from the erosion platform, students find a treasury of rich course material about the sea at Bitou Fishing Harbor. The children learn about the varieties of fishing boats and the tides from local fishermen and elderly residents. Even the local seafood restaurants provide living classrooms for the students, where they learn about Bitou Cape’s marine environment through the variations in the content of the local catch in different seasons.
“Our school is quite unique in that we have sports events both on land and at sea.” Chen Yu Fang explains that from their first or second year, students practice wearing lifejackets while competing in sports. In the third and fourth years, they learn snorkeling, kayaking and canoeing, either at Bitou Harbor’s Ruansi Park or at nearby Longdong Bay Ocean Park.
Chen Yu Fang, principal of Bitou Elementary School.