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Sharing of Teaching Resources 2017 : Empowering Students to Become Independent Learners in Scientific Investigation

Teachers’ Information

  • Mr HO Tik-shun, Ms LEUNG Yue-shan, Jennifer, Dr CHAN Pik-ying, Mr CHUNG Cheuk-hung, Vincent
  • The Chinese Foundation Secondary School
  • Teachers presented with the Award of Chief Executive’s Award for Teaching Excellence (2016/2017)
  • Subjects Taught: Science and Biology

Teaching Philosophy

We believe that an understanding of the biodiversity of plants promotes awareness of environmental conservation. Adopting a multidisciplinary approach, STREAM, we would like to educate the younger generation to observe the principles of sustainable development, develop an awareness of environmental conservation, and act as a responsible citizen.

Teachers’ Sharing

“All Start from Trees” to promote biodiversity conservation

With widespread resource exploitation, habitat destruction and devastating pollution problems, some scientists have issued a stern warning that we are facing the Sixth Mass Extinction of Life on earth. Global warming, drastic climate change, coral bleaching, etc. are alarming signals of the issues.

To save our next generation, our school initiated the notion “All Start from Trees” and organised many projects/learning activities along this line. It takes ten years to grow a tree but a hundred years to educate a man. Education is most important for environmental conservation. We provide opportunities for students to learn the importance and properties of green plants, and try to cultivate a sense of environmental awareness and conservation among our students.

Promotion of sustainable development: from school to the community

We require students to investigate, integrate and internalise when learning science. We make good use of the environment and facilities in the school campus to help students explore plant diversity and environmental conservation through the following three approaches:

  1. Inquiry approach in an open and engaging setting
  2. STREAM interdisciplinary approach (an acronym for Science, Technology, Reading and Writing, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics)
  3. To spread the message of biodiversity conservation in the community

Students investigate plant biodiversity through field studies on the Environmental Trail within the school. Besides morphological studies and construction of dichotomous keys to categorise plant species, they collect soil samples and analyse the chemical constituents in group experiments. (Please refer to attachment: Plant Diversity Worksheet) After discussing the results from experiments, students compile a report and upload their findings to our school’s online knowledge-based platform for sharing of information among students. The platform would also be used by junior students as learning resources, with contents being regularly kept updated by peers.
 
Biodiversity education is not confined to the classroom. It can be implemented via co-curricular activities and social services. Using the knowledge-based platform, we construct an e-map to record the roadside trees in Siu Sai Wan District in a community project, and promote the notion of sustainable development to people through the event HKSciFest and the Sustainable Development School Award Programme. We have successfully launched a series of Mobile Learning Workshops and Plant Specimen Collection & Preservation Workshops to promote the message of environmental conservation to the children, elderly and parents in the community.

Sharing of Resources

Teaching Practices

Exploring Plant Biodiversity

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