The mind and body is intricately connected and this relationship governs our entire behaviour and outlook in life. Our job as outdoor educator is to train both components to cultivate all rounded individuals capable of dealing with the many challenges they will face in life.

This is especially true for young adult, who needs to build up their character in preparing themselves to enter a highly competitive world. Participants in our programmes can expect to gain leadership qualities that range from: the ability to effectively work in teams; to construct realistic goals, to find a strategy in attaining such goals; to develop interpersonal and communication skills necessary in implementing the strategy, and most importantly the will and perseverance to attain their goals.

All too often outdoor programmes are hastily put together with various components. However, it is our belief that diversity without convergence is meaningless, programmes that aim to be too multifarious without synergy only serves to diffuse student learning. Our programmes operate according to our client’s specific need, we design modular components to synergistically meet the overarching objectives of our clients. 

Zen Quest is proud to announce its support as a sponsor of the 2014 ACAMIS (The Association of China and Mongolia International Schools) spring conference. We will be happy to answer questions and give advice on educational delivery in the outdoors. Click here for more information about the conference.

Leadership training is an experiential process necessary in preparing students
to lead. However, much of the existing leadership framework are aimed primarily at educated adults who are in an institutional position vested with power. As such, it has limited application to the budding adolescent mind.

Early adolescence is a developmental stage marked by hormonal and physical changes in the body.  As teens are dealing with the transition between childhood to early adulthood, this period is characterised by dramatic changes in identity, self consciousness and cognitive dexterity. Although many students are able to move beyond black and white thinking and begin to think in abstract terms, research have repeatedly demonstrated that students are more keen to learn about topics they can apply to real life, and some may reject the study of what they consider “academic subjects”. They prefer active over passive learning experiences, and value opportunities for interaction with peers during class.

Our 5-7 day program in Shaxi is specifically designed to cultivate the leadership qualities latent in all our students of this age. This is where the theory of servant leadership comes in.

“The servant leader is a servant first. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. This is in sharp contrast to the person who is a leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions.” (Greenleaf, 1970)

Accordingly the focus of our leadership program lies in cultivating our students’ intrinsic need and passion in serving others. What we mean by serving others is not the narrowly defined, rudimentary and trite “service learning methodology" prevalent in other service providers from our industry. Service is an umbrella term that encapsulates the very essence of passion, of initiating an idea and have the confidence and ability to carry the idea out into fruition. The motivation for so doing is to better the lives of others, the methodology in achieving so will require vision, communication, investment and above all camaraderie and shared passion. In the following we will seek to demonstrate how this could be done.

Getting ready for the fall? Take your schools outdoor education, service learning, microcampus setup, expeditions and experiential education to the next level with Zen Quest’s tailor made, thematically designed programs. We set out to prove that outdoor education works, come and take part in this endeavour with us, as we use every program to further research, in the effectiveness of adventure education and service learning.

Danxia Mountain 丹霞山, little known outside of China, is a geo-park in Guangdong province which has gained UNESCO recognition for its geology and natural habitats. The mountain is situated in Renhua County, about 45 kilometres (28 miles) from Shaoguan City. Covering an area of more than 280 square kilometres (69,190 acres), the mountain is composed primarily of red sandstone rocks.

The scenic area contains more than 680 various stone peaks, stone fortresses, walls, pillars and stone bridges. The stones have been formed over the eons by nature, many of them have likenesses to parts of the human body, birds and even animals.
Some activities include:

Trekking

Canoeing（homemade bamboo raft)

Abseiling

Community service (cleaning farmhouses or fixing the roads) and conducting research (on average personal income, population, number of people working out of town, number of staying people, daily life, transportation, local environmental protection and others).

Global issues; how to create leaders equipped with both a global vision and a willingness to work with others, the groundwork begins with education.

Issues such as global poverty, climate change and international disputes require solutions based on sacrifice, courage and integrity. Our programmes provide a great platform for developing the above qualities. Our Servant Leadership program focuses on shared decision making based on moral fortitude.

Geography River Studies

Our field work programs bring learning to life, with innovative program design, real world experience and expert staff.
We take our knowledge of the outdoors and education, fusing them together to create the best facilitated learning experiences ever.

Contact us for more information on your next: coastal studies, river studies, or environmental science program in China.

Our experienced team have travelled the breadth and width of China and much of the world in search of the most interesting and rewarding programmes both for outdoor adventure, business education and cultural/environmental diversity.

The locations we use are diverse and exotic with culture and adventure abound. Visit our locations page to read about some of the places we have travelled to. For international schools, expats and organisations interested in running student learning programmes in China, they are often met with logistical and cultural challenges. This is where our expertise comes in handy.

This gives us an unparalleled edge in running Chinese expeditions. All our staff are proficient in Mandarin and English, capable of delivering all program contents in English, with back end staff operating and dealing with local people in their respective local languages. Our edge lies in seamlessly smooth logistics, and the savings we bring for your institution as we are able to negotiate a better price for everything from transport to accommodation and food.

Liaising with international schools in China, Hong Kong and the USA. One thing that comes up time and again is justifying their extra curricular activities, outdoor education and field studies to the education board (be it IB, A-level, or IGCSE), the parents, and the schools examination system. They all require not only resources, but taking time away from classroom learning. However, for many students experiential learning in the natural environment can be more effective and powerful in facilitating understanding than traditional classroom education. This begs the question as to why most outdoor learning conducted off school grounds are still classified as extracurricular instead of being an integral part of students school life?

We think the key limiting factors are:

• Risk

• Cost

• Time

• Understanding  

• Lack of measurability under conventional examination systems.

The Zen Quest team conduct in depth conversations with teachers, as we believe the best information with regards to student learning is provided by the amazing people who dedicate their lives to providing student education. The consensus amongst them is simple: they would like their students to conduct more of their research in the real world, then use the classroom to enforce that learning with theory backed up by hard data. To this end we have worked hard to provide a range of field studies and CAS programmes specifically designed for IB CAS, IGCSE, and A-level.

With 15 years' experience doing these programs, we are well acquainted with the needs of each curriculum, and are able to support you in having the perfect trip.

Contact Us to get more information on our Geography Field Studies programmes, like our IGCSE River Ecology Program, our Coastal Studies Program, or our ESS program. We also have a range of IB CAS trips available on request.

Starting in 2013 Zen Quest Adventures made it a top priority to designing programmes that could be run in conjunction with IB, GCSE and A Levels. Where entire lessons, student research and experiments can be delivered in the field. We can achieve this by working with educators, facilitators and teachers in collaboration. Where you are more than just our client as we work together, providing the leaders of tomorrow with the best educational experiences possible today.

Shigu (事故) is located on the first bend on the Changjiang River (金沙江，长江河) and is famous for being the place where the red army crossed during the long march. One small old bridge still remains and there is a small museum in the village dedicated to this event.

Rainbow valley (彩虹谷), nicknamed for the many rainbows that can be seen here during the summer months, is 4km up into the hills behind the Village. The valley has steep sides rising over 3000m in all directions and is characterised by its conglomerate limestone walls. The first rock climbing was established here in June 2014 on the annual Kailas Rock Search, Eben Farnworth and Zhoulei were on this initial trip. Since then over 100 routes have been established in the valley. Climbing styles include sport, multi pitch and some traditional routes as well.

The local people are mainly Naxi and Lisu; they farm: maze, tobacco, water melons and a range of vegetables. Many of these people do not natively originate from this area, but settled over the last 150 years to work in the timber trade, cutting down the now nearly non existent forests.

We are going to integrate the Internet of Things into our Earthship. Something which the team in Taos seams lacking in is scientific research and precise measurement of their buildings performances. We will start with temperature and install temperature sensors in the walls floor and ceiling of our Earthship. We will feed the data live to our website where it can be collected and analysed by anyone. Second we will design a micro computer management system to open and close the cold and hot air vents in our Earthship based on readings from the temperature sensors embedded throughout the building. This will make for a much more controlled living environment without the need to get up in the middle of the night to close a vent, and this is just the beginning.