Rainforest Restoration Project's Holiday Tree Competition

By Rainforest Restoration GC
11 January 2022

Before the term ended, UWCSEA’s Rainforest Restoration Project GC lent mentor groups trees to decorate for the holidays to promote environmental stewardship and bring nature a little closer to daily life at UWCSEA. The project was then turned into a competition for Best Decorated Tree.

Christmas tree decoration by a class

The project (Rainforest Restoration Project's Holiday Tree Competition) was an inaugural instalment, the first of its kind organised by the GC. We were planning to hold it last year, but Covid complications had made it difficult which made it all the more gratifying to hold it this year. It was completely student-led, with all four grades of High School getting involved in aspects from designing promotional material to the heavy lifting of delivering trees (literally!). 

As we are a non-fundraising GC, the goal for this project was primarily to bring Singapore's ecosystem into the forefront of student minds even for a little bit and to help build an appreciation for them.

The trees we used are colloquially known as Saga (the ones with the bright red seeds), and scientifically as Adenthera Pavonina. They are not strictly indigenous to Singapore specifically, but this made them appropriate for this project as we weren't risking any valuable or vulnerable species with a sudden change in environment. Our philosophy is that one indigenous tree does more good than a non-indigenous one, but a non-indigenous tree (as long as it is not aggressively invasive) is better than no tree at all. 

Participants for tree decoration competition

The tree that won the competition was 11NBA because of its artistic decoration as well as its reliance on recycled learner portfolios which would otherwise be discarded. The winner was decided by a panel of teachers. Post decoration, all of the trees were undecorated and moved back to the nursery where they serve both as carbon sinks and a useful resource for many biology students as sources of data for IAs and EEs. Great work all around!