Designing an Environmental Education Teaching Plan is like Baking a Cake
Have you ever baked a sponge cake? Despite its simple recipe, only if with full attention paid to every single detail will you be able to make a fluffy fragrant sponge cake that lures everyone to linger on. The same applies to environmental education.
It all starts with choosing “ingredients”. Nature provides us with many sources, but to select those that are closely related to subjects taught in school and will interest students, one has to be familiar with the course guidelines of different subjects. Through using local examples to assist in teaching, with novel and living sources, the realistic side of our local ecology could be presented.
The next step is to adjust the amount of ingredients and write your “recipe”. There are many ways to bake a cake, same goes to designing teaching plans. With reference to the learning ability and interests of students, we created different unique activities from the many education methods and topics. Moving forward from the traditional way of holding a guided tour and taking the experience to another level. Other than the above mentioned, environmental education requires both affective and cognitive learning approaches. Therefore, the ratio of the two approaches is key to a successful learning plan. For examples, discovery-oriented exploration that utilizes the five senses and scientific investigation that focuses on ecological knowledge. No matter how picky you are, there is always a favourable flavour.
Receiving feedbacks from participants helps improving our activities:
- Ms. Chu of Po Leung Kuk Grandmont Primary School
- Mr. Lee of Yuen Long Catholic Secondary School
Valuing Opinions from Teachers and Students - Endless Innovation & Trials
Giving every gourmet an unforgettable experience is the dream of every chef. Similarly, we hope students can leave their academic stress behind for a moment and enjoy being in nature, reconnecting with nature once again. Therefore, we always uphold the concept of “student-oriented”. Through endless innovation and improvement, we hope to bring students a more interactive and interesting learning experience (With our persistence and determination, we finally get that fragrance of our cake!).
School is an important venue to nourish the awareness of environmental protection in students. As environmental education is still on the edge of surviving in the curriculum of secondary schools and primary schools, we have to grasp every opportunity to communicate with students. To provide them with effective environmental education, aiming to develop their love for nature and build up their sense of responsibility towards protecting the environment. Therefore, we designed and organised “OWLHK Life-wide Learning Activities: Environmental Education for Schools”, which professional environmental educators will guide students in nature to learn more about the unique local ecology and natural environment.
Adapting Theories of Environmental Education, Promoting Life-wide Learning
All of our outdoor activities are designed based on the Effective Field-based Environmental Education Model (Ma, 2016) by Dr. Xoni Ma, founder of OWLHK. Before going outdoors, tutors will hold interactive talk for students, introducing them basic ecology knowledge and ensuring a basic understanding of the focus of the activity. Also, to further increase the learning incentive of students, we help students establishing a positive expectation of field trips. Out in the wild, we persist to teach in small groups to improve teaching quality. Under the guidance of tutors, students were able to be more involved in the activities and tend to be more proactive in asking questions and responding, stimulating their curiosity towards nature.
Other than outdoor activities, we especially designed indoor activities to cater schools with different teaching needs. If students were not able to go out to the field, they can still learn about the biodiversity of Hong Kong with fun and interactive teaching methods. Taking “Little Wildlife Director” as an example, students will use locally shot ecology videos to create a story, acting and voicing over different organisms. The activity allows students to make use of their creativity and imagination, not only raising their individual connection with the local biodiversity but also consolidating their knowledge on different habitats and species. Through such, students can practice materials learned in classrooms and integrate imagination with knowledge.
We deeply believe that environmental education is closely interrelated to life-wide learning. Outdoor experience inspires curiosity and respect to life in children. At the same time, training their ability to observe and concentrate, and achieving an all-rounded personal development. In line with topics about nature and different learning stages of students, we prepared multiple educational activities for secondary and primary schools all over Hong Kong to join. For instance, these activities include forest ecology and plant diversity, urban ecology, wetland ecology, and the ecology of amphibians and reptiles. We hope participating student can know about the local ecology and natural environment more comprehensively, learn and acknowledge the significance of protecting the biodiversity, ultimately taking action.
If you are also interested in trying our ‘creative cuisine’, feel free to browse our website to learn more!
References:
- Ma, K. K. (2016). Field-based teaching and learning in environmental education: a case study on official curriculum in Hong Kong. (PhD Thesis). University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong SAR.