China’s expanding cities, vast landscapes, and evolving culture provide an ideal backdrop for Shanghai international school students to deepen their educational experience. Students participating in Concordia’s educational travel programs acquire self-knowledge, form new friendships, challenge preconceived ideas, and put the needs of others before their own, all while immersing themselves in the unique cultural aspects of their host country.
Our younger students explore Shanghai and the surrounding areas on day trips to museums, theaters, parks and water villages. They also experience service opportunities at local schools and charities that are designed to empower them as servant leaders and active global citizens.
As they progress through the middle school, students have opportunities to go further afield, exploring different regions of the country through educational travel centered around culture, service, and adventure. Week-long trips to Nanbeihu, Moganshan, Beijing, and Yangshou are the hallmarks of the middle school educational excursions, and expose students to cultural experiences that allow them to see and experience things they have never tried before.
In high school, Concordia students participate in the Transforming Individuals by Education & Service (TrIBES) program. TrIBES offers students the chance to explore Chinese culture through a variety of excursions that take place in destinations across the country. Past excursions have had students undertaking activities that included working with coffee farmers in rural Yunnan, hiking and camping along the historic trade routes of the Abujee mountain, and traveling from Suzhou to Gansu as they traced the same route as ancient merchants along the Silk Road.
China is an endlessly fascinating country. Concordia Shanghai chooses to focus our educational travel in China so that we can take full advantage of everything our host country has to teach us. As Abby, a grade 11 student puts it: “We all experience a new culture, new friends, and make a valuable connection with the people and environment in which we are immersed.”
