Earth Day was celebrated in Shanghai over the weekend at Shanghai Zoo. The annual international celebration raises public awareness about the environment.

Participants from both home and abroad set up 12 ethnic booths, do-it-yourself areas and a stage.

The ethnic booths were set up as villages representing different countries. China, Japan, South Korea, Canada, France, the Philippines, Scandinavian nations and the United States were among those represented. Each village represented its culture and what each country was doing to stop pollution.

Inside China's booth, students from the Shanghai Rainbow Bridge International School built a three-story monastery with more than 100 empty milk cartons and named it Jing'an Temple.

Within the DIY areas, children and their parents were taught to make bracelets, earrings, and shuttlecocks with used paper and plastics.

"The Earth is everything, we need to protect our natural resources for our children," said Janice Sigrist, the event organizer, also the principle of Rainbow Bridge International School.

Earth Day was launched in the United States in the 1970s. So far Earth Day is celebrated in more than 141 countries and regions in the world. The Chinese government has organized public activities since the 1990s.

(Shanghai Daily April 24, 2006)