[{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/in-conversation-with-cassandra-yip-founder-of-earth-school-singapore\/#NewsArticle","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/in-conversation-with-cassandra-yip-founder-of-earth-school-singapore\/","headline":"In Conversation With: Cassandra Yip, Founder of Earth School Singapore","name":"In Conversation With: Cassandra Yip, Founder of Earth School Singapore","description":"For a long time, environmentalists worldwide have been pushing for environmental education to be integrated into the mainstream public school education system.\u00a0 While there has been no shortage of outreach programmes conducted by organisations like the Jane Goodall Institute or Conservation International, there remains a pressing need to have mainstream environmental education in a highly […]","datePublished":"2022-01-27","dateModified":"2022-04-15","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/author\/rachel-teng\/#Person","name":"Rachel Teng","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/author\/rachel-teng\/","identifier":367,"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/Rachel_Teng-100x100.jpg","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/Rachel_Teng-100x100.jpg","height":96,"width":96}},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"TheHomeGround 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mens","url":"https:\/\/globalshoepalace.com\/product-tag\/new-balance-men-running-shoes"}},{"@type":"Comment","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/in-conversation-with-cassandra-yip-founder-of-earth-school-singapore\/#Comment2","dateCreated":"2026-04-24 06:12:57","description":"This content is incredibly informative.","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Salomon shoes pink","url":"https:\/\/globalshoepalace.com\/product-category\/women\/Salomon-Women-Shoes"}}],"about":["Community","Environment","Features","In Conversation With","Local","Singapore"],"wordCount":1523,"keywords":["cassandra yip","earth school singapore","education","environmental education","environmental literacy","schools"],"articleBody":"For a long time, environmentalists worldwide have been pushing for environmental education to be integrated into the mainstream public school education system.\u00a0While there has been no shortage of outreach programmes conducted by organisations like the Jane Goodall Institute or Conservation International, there remains a pressing need to have mainstream environmental education in a highly accessible manner, especially for a generation of children who will inherit the most climate-uncertain future humankind has ever known.\u00a0In Singapore, Member of Parliament Louis Ng asked then Minister for Education Ong Ye Kung whether his Ministry would consider working with environmental groups to \u201ccreate a standardised environmental package\u201d.\u00a0But existing initiatives, while commendable, still fail to treat environmental literacy as a fundamental education pillar, just like traditional academic disciplines such as Mathematics or English.\u00a0The SG Green Plan, which charts the government\u2019s key sustainability targets for 2030, has no concrete mention for increasing environmental awareness and outreach \u2014\u00a0which arguably remains the key crux of the matter for most, if not all, environmental issues.\u00a0Enter Ms Cassandra Yip, 22, founder of Singapore\u2019s first-ever non-profit school for environmental education, Earth School Singapore.\u00a0Acting as a platform pulling together nature and sustainability groups islandwide, the third-year environmental studies undergraduate from the National University of Singapore believes in \u201ctapping into [kids\u2019] creativity and imagination about coming up with climate solutions\u201d, and is driven by the prospect that a game-changing solution could be \u201clocked up in a little mind out there\u201d.\u00a0Just one year into conception, Ms Yip and her team have been awarded funding under the SG Eco Fund, and are kick-starting their pilot education programme with 10 primary schools.\u00a0Join TheHomeGround Asia in discovering Ms Yip\u2019s origin story, what the curriculum will look like, and why she believes that education is at the heart of environmental protection.\u00a0TheHomeGround Asia (THG): Is there a particular environmental issue that you are passionate about?\u00a0Cassandra Yip (CY): I\u2019m a big fan of marine life. And some part of me still wishes that I did marine biology. My parents are actually scuba diving instructors. My mum worked at the old Underwater World. It was while scuba diving that they met. I spent a lot of my childhood by the beach, so you can see that their love for the ocean has kind of rubbed off on me. I think the marine ecosystem has been a big part of my life growing up, and it still is. In a sense, it\u2019s my second home, so I feel like there\u2019s a need to protect it, given all the environmental degradation that we\u2019re seeing today.THG: So, why environmental education?\u00a0CY: Earth School is actually greatly inspired by my own childhood. I was motivated by wanting to give children that same kind of experience when they\u2019re young, to shape environmentalists that way. I myself would have loved to have learnt more about the environment when I was in primary and secondary school. It would have probably started off my path as an environmentalist much younger. So that\u2019s kind of what we strive to do \u2014 to create a whole new generation of passionate environmentalists, all trying to find nature-based solutions for the climate crisis that we are in.\u00a0The first time Cassandra saw an ocean sunfish was in Fukuoka Aquarium \u2014 and then it became her favourite animal. (Photo courtesy of Cassandra Yip)Within the environmental community, I didn\u2019t think we had a shortage of amazing environmentalists doing good work — I still don’t. But I thought environmental education was sorely lacking here \u2014 there is a gap in connecting the rest of the public to these environmentalists\u2019 initiatives. It wouldn\u2019t make sense to keep cleaning up beaches after people and trying to stop people from stealing fish out of Changi if we didn\u2019t get them on board with the same ideologies and passion that we need to have to protect our environment. So I hope to drive change in conservation efforts from upstream, and meet environmentalists from downstream [and cross] somewhere in the middle.\u00a0THG: What\u2019s the backstory behind Earth School Singapore?\u00a0CY: I always wanted to be a marine biologist, and I think it was very disappointing as a child that it never seemed to be an option. You know when you\u2019re in primary school and they ask you in class, \u201cwhat do you want to be when you grow up?\u201d Everybody wanted to be something along the lines of a doctor, a teacher, or a nurse, and I just wanted to do something related to aquatic life. Back then, it didn\u2019t seem like there were any avenues or opportunities to pursue that kind of career in Singapore no less, which has always been thought to be so diverse in opportunities.\u00a0I think one of the things I\u2019m trying to achieve at Earth School is to tell children that there is an opportunity to pursue environmental-related dreams, or if not, at least get them thinking about how they can contribute to creating a more sustainable future.\u00a0THG: What age group are you targeting at?\u00a0CY: Starting out, we will work with primary and secondary schools, because we want to expose kids to environmental issues when they are young. We want to tap into their creativity and imagination about coming up with solutions.\u00a0And I hate to say this, but our generation and all previous generations have yet to produce any ‘Albert Einsteins’ who have changed the game for our climate crisis. So perhaps the answer is still locked up in a little mind out there. Of course, we\u2019ll be happy to extend our environmental literacy programmes to as many sectors of our community as we can. After all, we\u2019re going to have to be moving together as a society into the future.\u00a0THG: What does the curriculum at Earth School look like?\u00a0CY: We have three pillars here at the school. The first is to learn green, the second to experience nature, and the third to act and impact. Since we\u2019ve only been around for a year or so, what we\u2019ve been doing so far is more of the first two pillars. Moving forward, we want to push out more tangible initiatives like driving sustainability and greening our school infrastructure as part of the third pillar. This has been a bit harder given the Covid-19 regulations in schools especially.\u00a0Nature trip to Sungei Buloh for children from Budding Minds, together with NUS Save. (Photo courtesy of Cassandra Yip)THG: What can we look forward to from Earth School Singapore in the near future?\u00a0CY: In February, we\u2019re very excited to be running Singapore\u2019s first-ever nationwide environmental education programme. As a pilot programme, we\u2019ve kept it to ten primary schools. We\u2019ve named the programme S.H.I.E.L.D. \u2014 which stands for Student Heroes In Environmental Leadership Development \u2014 which is Marvel themed! We wanted to give kids the idea that they would be eco-Avengers, or little superheroes for the environment.\u00a0We start off with ten different virtual lessons on the ten different Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) that we target. Following this, each school will be paired with each SDG, in which the school will follow up with \u201cExperience Nature\u201d trips, and the \u201cAct and Impact\u201d portion of that. If you\u2019re working on SDG 14 (Life Below Water), for example, you would probably go for an intertidal walk, and learn more about the marine biodiversity that we have there, and the kind of pollution and other factors that are threatening the ecosystem that we come to witness. That\u2019s the kind of experiential learning we want to do; bringing education to life by letting the kids see it in person.\u00a0Following that, we will be running an \u201ceco-innovation\u201d programme of sorts for our third pillar, which is getting the kids to think critically about the problems surrounding environmental conservation and sustainability. This portion will be well supported by different mentors from the different environmental organisations that we\u2019re working with.\u00a0From the yearlong pilot programme, Earth School aims to produce 50 young environmentalists who are championing their own projects in the community. Earth School really works on the ground, bringing in all sectors of societies and connecting children with living\/existing champions in the field of environmentalism.\u00a0THG: What other long term plans do you have for Earth School in the future? Would we be able to look forward to a physical Earth School?\u00a0CY: We\u2019re trying to get a mobile Earth School classroom. I imagine it to be a little caravan that functions as an extension of a school. Hopefully, the whole thing will run on solar energy. It would be completely zero waste, with composting and water recycling, things like that. Kids would be able to come and interact with nature, participate in upcycling workshops and the like. We could grow microgreens and start inviting biodiversity to come and visit. We are seeking additional funding to get that going!Join the conversations on TheHomeGround Asia’s Facebook and Instagram, and get the latest updates via Telegram."},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Destinations","item":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Singapore","item":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/\/singapore\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"In Conversation With: Cassandra Yip, Founder of Earth School Singapore","item":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/in-conversation-with-cassandra-yip-founder-of-earth-school-singapore\/#breadcrumbitem"}]}]