TAL's science camp brand teams up with The North Face Kids for night-time nature exploration in Beijing

TAL's premium science study-tour brand Xueersi Kaoke (学而思科考) has closed a crossover event with outdoor label The North Face Kids, bringing families to Beijing's Old Summer Palace (Yuanmingyuan) for an immersive natural-science program.

Multiple parent-child groups gathered at a Blue Harbor The North Face Kids store before boarding buses to the 300-year-old imperial garden. The session combined daytime birdwatching — Yuanmingyuan hosts more than 100 wild bird species — with an after-dark 'night spirit' module in which children observed toads, frogs and nocturnal insects under supervision.

The program was led by Dr. Meng Hao, a Peking University PhD and Chinese Academy of Sciences postdoctoral researcher, who guided children through species identification, the hydrophobic effect of lotus leaves, and bird 'sexual dimorphism' and migration. Each child received binoculars, a night-exploration flashlight and a field guide.

Xueersi Kaoke runs on an 'online knowledge foundation plus offline field exploration' model, leaning on expert instructors, scarce field sites and safety support to build students' inquiry skills. The North Face Kids frames outdoor exploration as a classroom no child should miss.

The collaboration is less a one-off family outing than an attempt to plant curiosity early — merging a science-education IP with an outdoor brand to push experiential learning beyond the textbook.