In front of the OCT National Wetland Park, three brightly colored, one-meter-long grasshoppers perch lazily on a meadow. Elaborately woven with roystonea regia (Royal Palm) leaves, the giant insects are created by Zhang Keren and her classmates from Shenzhen OCT Primary School in Nanshan District.

Zhang came up with the idea of making big grasshoppers while she participated in a nature art installation activity held by the primary school, which highly values nature education.

Instructed by Hu Hezhi, one of her teachers, Zhang and her classmates started to put the idea into practice.

“There are many fallen leaves of roystonea regia trees in the OCT community. The cleaning workers would collect them and send them away, and they would become fertilizers of the city’s trees. But we can also use them as materials for art works,” said Zhang.

The three grasshoppers took them two weeks. They started by collecting leaves, and then they classified and cleaned the leaves before drying them in the sun and cutting them into slices suitable for weaving. They made structures and bones first and then moved on to work on the details and coloring.

The works turned out to be unexpectedly good, so their school headmaster sent the grasshoppers to the wetland park.

During the summer vacation, the little girl has a busy schedule. She has been collecting roystonea regia leaves, other palm tree leaves, used bottles and leftover coconut shells and transforming them into lovely crafts such as mantles, horses, baskets and hair pins as well as grasshoppers.

Many people would consider Zhang’s work as the recycling of waste, but Zhang thinks otherwise.

“The leaves are used so they’re not waste any more. They have gained a new life,” she said.

“I have found out how to put on joints to the grasshoppers, so that they can move. This is an updated version. But the joints can be easily broken,” Zhang said regretfully.

Zhang’s sense of environmental protection led her to other concerns. Her research on the mudskippers in Shenzhen Bay has won prizes.

As an illustrator for Shenzhen’s environmental protection association, from March to May this year Zhang took part in a charity project on making a picture book titled “How to Get Along With Wild Animals.”

After reading and watching news of pangolins being hunted and killed, Zhang drew an illustration where a pangolin says “don’t hurt me.”

“Our school asked us to spend the summer vacation in a low-carbon way, and this is my way of doing it. Shenzhen is advocating waste classification. My grandmother and mother always flush the toilet with used water. We also classify waste at home,” said Zhang.

(Lin Lin)