Over the summer, junior Aria Soeprono, senior Simon Soeprono , junior Gabriel Blanchet, junior Steven Hei, and junior Christina Tuttle, journeyed to Guangzhou, China to learn about sustainable practices in response to the world’s growing pollution.
“When I heard about this opportunity, I seized it because it was an amazing opportunity to see the world and expand my knowledge of the Chinese language,” Simon Soeprono said.
The organization that the students traveled through, iLive2Lead, is a youth international leadership conference that emphasizes youth involvement in world affairs. The trip focused on improving the environment.
“We had this mass meeting, and it was cool to see so many different students with different opinions and cultures in one place,” Blanchet said.
The purpose of this trip was to learn the Chinese sustainable practices. In China, they went to several lectures and saw how the pollution affected the people living there.
“There are people in severely disadvantaged communities that are impacted by pollution and climate change, and there are organizations that desire to improve these communities,” junior Steven Hei said.
The group learned about the various emissions and the impact they have on the environment, along with alternative methods to combat the increase in pollution.
Culture shock was a memorable part of the trip for the students, from the pollution, to the people, and to the weather.
“The most memorable part of the trip was when we slept overnight on Sandalwood Island in these military-barrack-type huts, and our air conditioning broke,” Hei said. “We ended up having to sleep outside because it was colder outdoors than it was indoors.”