A Design of an Environmental Trial with Activities Near the School Strengthening Students

A Design of an Environmental Trial with Activities near the School -- Strengthening Students’Learning About, In and For the Environment

Eva, Chan Suk Ying

Introduction

Children are all curious about their surroundings. School, obviously can be regarded as one of the most important area where students can learn to explore and explain the inter-relationships of the environment. Environmental education in school is thus a process enabling individuals and groups to understand the environment, to enhance skills and to develop values and attitudes necessary for participation in a responsible and effective way in anticipating and solving environmental problems, and in the management and improvement of the quality of the environment ( Guidelines on Environmental Education in Schools, CDC, 1999, p.3 ).

To achieve these prime aims, a number of approaches and principles have been advocated in recent decades. The most influential one emphases that environmental education is education about, in and for the total environment and it is also about the involvement of head, hands and heart (of students) (after Tilbury, 1994) (Kwan T., 1995). It is hoped that students can then be equipped as one with three A’s: Awareness, Action and Attitudes (Guidelines on Environmental Education in Schools, CDC, 1999, p.9).

Background of the Activities Designed

To put the principles above into practice, a series of activities along an interpretative trial are designed for students. The rationale behind the activities can be interpreted through the following aspects:

(1)  Aims of the Activities

By investigating students’ most familiarized environment (the school surrounding), they are given opportunities to:

a)  raise awareness and “update” students’ knowledge about their immediate surroundings (education about the environment);

b)  acquire direct experience through independent observation and participation in the searching for first-hand information in the field (education in the environment);

c)  take action in favour of the environment (education for the environment);

d)  make value judgement and decision on dilemmas arisen around their homeland and possibly to take active and responsible action to protect the environment from further deterioration.

(2)  Area Covered by the Trail

The trail is basically surrounding Long Ping Estate where is students’ homes and school located. The reason for choosing nearby site is because more than 60% of the students are coming from Long Ping Estate. Young children are inherently very practical and curious about their own immediate surroundings and virtually anything that goes wrong in their homeland will immediately attract their attention. It is also vital that they should be motivated to treasure, love and care for their own homeland first (Kwan T., 1995). Only when they gain the sense of belonging and achievement, they can develop confidence and interests to extend their concerns and thus take action for the environment farther away. It is also vital that since students get previous experiences, when they come to judgements and decision making, they can support themselves with stronger arguments and thus can even enhance their self-esteem (particularly for the academic lower achievers).

(3) Nature of the Activities

To motivate students’active participation, the activities designed shared the following characteristics:

a)  From Near to Far –starts from the school campus, where students spent most of the time on, to Long Ping Estate and its surrounding –easier to be handled by students by starting with their familiar surrounding

b)  Activity-based and Experiential –requires individual participation of walking along the trail and doing the task –the best way to acquire first-hand information

c)  Issue-oriented –“Think in Depth”section offer students a chance to engage in investigating the possible issues ( or problems ) arouse from the development of the surrounding –to motivate active learning among students

d)  Sensational Arousal –requires active use of students’sense-organs: eyes, ears, noses and hands –to stimulate one’s emotional feeling

e) Interdisciplinary –the whole project can be used in most social science subjects and biology, particularly Geography –to use knowledge from many other curriculum areas

How Far Do the Activities Designed Successful to Achieve These Aims?

(1)  Raise Awareness and Enrich Students’Understanding of the Homeland ( About the Environment and involves one’s Head )

Among the four main themes of the study, all involve components of introducing students with more information of their surroundings.

In Stop 1 (the school campus), to make good use of the school valuable garden, students are required to list the names of the plant / vegetation found inside the garden. It is supposed to be

easiest task of the whole activity. However, it turns out as the most difficult one. This shows that students do not pay much attention to their natural surrounding environment. The exercise is thus important to “push” them to “open their eye” to gain more knowledge of our natural world. Once they acquire the knowledge, they can apply what they learnt in other nature trials in the urban / country parks. For Stop 2, though students may notice there is a construction site nearby school, they may not aware of what is it for. For such a giant change of the landscape, students should be “informed” of what is happening. Similar to Stop 2, students may walk along Wang Lok Street (Stop 3) everyday. Whenever they walk across the road, they have to “stop breathing”, especially in summer time. But they probably do not notice where does the bad smell comes from and thus do not notice how serious the water and air pollution caused by the surrounding manufacturing activities is. It is thus a good chance for them to “stop and watch” and to investigate the causes behind. Stop 4 is supposed to be the most “unfamiliar” area to students. So probably they do not notice we are still able to preserve a “green belt for farming” in the town area. This also leads them to trace back the original land use of Long Ping Estate and the history of their immediate environment.

It should be noted that all the knowledge required by the activity is not directly offered by teacher. Students are the one who initiate the exploration of the necessary background understanding of the area by practising skill of inquiry, data collection (from both the reference materials offered by teacher and the immediate environment) and interdependent observation of the environment.

(2)  Acquire direct experience and first-hand information in the field

( In the environment and involves one’s Hands )

Students’concepts and attitudes are best formed by a student-centred teaching approach rather than through inculcation of values and judgements by teacher. Students learn more by doing than listening. Thus the most effective way of understanding and dealing with environmental issues is to study in the field (Guidelines on Environmental Education in Schools, CDC, 1999, p.11). All the activities designed require students to contact directly with the environment. Stop 3 and Stop 4, in particular, are the two points where students have to make use of their sense organs to complete the tasks. Say, in Stop 3, students are required to examine the water quality of the river by smelling and observing. In Stop 4, they have to compare their sense impression obtained with that in Stop 3. These emotional feeling and impression is certainly unobtainable from any books or videos. Unless they have smelt the odor, they won’t be able to notice the seriously polluted river water. Unless they have walked along an annoying and noisy street, they won’t appreciate the sound of birds. Unless they have been “suffocated” with the vehicle fumes, they won’t enjoy the smell of grass and mud.

In the exercise, students are also required to take one photo which shows the best and one which shows the worst scene along the trail. This practice further arouses students’ attention to the environment. While they walk along the trail, their individual perception and understanding of the surrounding can be stimulated and enriched. The misleading messages like overstress or understates of problems from other second-hand materials can be avoided.

(3)  Take Action for the Environment

( For the environment and involves one’s Heart )

Education for the environment stresses the development of an informed concern for the environment. It concerned with the formation of attitudes that lead to a personal environmental ethic so that students’ action will be positively directed to the development of a sustainable world (Guidelines on Environmental Education in Schools, CDC, 1999, p.4). This can be regarded as the chief and also the most difficult aim to achieve. To promote a willingness and ability to adopt lifestyle choices that are compatible with the wise use of environmental resources among students (Bicentennial Australian Studies School Project) (Kwan), we need to help them to inquire into foreseen and unforeseen consequences of one’s actions (e.g. pollution, massive replacement of natural landscape with built-up area) (Arnold J., 1985, p.14).

In the activity, this main objective is advocated both directly and indirectly. The design of a device to protect the tree bark in the school garden offer students a chance to take action to preserve the valuable asset of the school. They will surely take greater care of the trees in the school garden no matter their design is accepted or not. It is because while they are designing the device, their sense of responsibility and commitment towards the protection of the natural vegetation is cultivated. It is hoped that their sense of belonging can be spread through other fellow schoolmates. And their protective action will be practised beyond the school garden.

After completing the trip, students are required to display their photos taken to other schoolmates. The photos indeed reflect students’ perception about their immediate surroundings. While enjoying the photos, other schoolmates are actually sharing the feeling with the “small photographers”. Though they do not join the trip, their awareness and appreciation of the homeland can also be developed. Actually, the students are helping to spread the messages of environmental protection. They are doing a favour for the environment.

(4) Make value judgement and decision on dilemmas and take action

As suggested by Arnold J (1985), in every form of guided environmental interpretation, the aim must be to encourage individual participants to test the validity and the scope of their observations, explanations, conclusions and actions, more especially by criticism and by group discussions after each educational visit. To enhance students’ ability in these areas, scenarios are created in Stop 1 and 4 for discussion:

Stop 1: Suppose we now get $1 000 000 from Pok Oi Hospital to improve our school facilities. Our school management board would like to construct a new building to offer an IT Room, a Student Union Activity Room and a Study Room for our students. The only choice of the land is by replacing the school garden. Will you support the plan? Why?

Stop 4: Suppose our government is planning to develop another housing estate next to Long Ping Estate to offer houses for the increasing population. The best choice is to develop westward, i.e. Wang Chau. Since it is a new planned housing estate, special attention will be put on the provision of green and recreational facilities for the future residents. But of course, the rural area now is inevitably been removed.

Will you support the plan? Why?

Both scenarios offer students chances to think under their roles assigned. Say, for Stop 1 scenario, students can be either “general students”, “members of school Green Club”or “Representatives of School Management Board”. For Stop 4, they can be either “local residents”, “government representatives”or “environmentalists”. While they are arguing on the dilemmas, they are actually practising both convergent thinking and critical thinking. They have to grasp information from various sources (both first-hand data from the field and the second-hand one from the references) to come up with their decision and supporting reasons. At the same time, to be the champion of the class debate, they have to consider and weigh others’ arguments. Of course, the final result is not our main concern. Most importantly, students can be trained to determine which alternatives or decision is better through the process of interpreting, evaluating and judging of all possibilities.

For other discussion questions in the “Think in Depth”, students are required to practise same sort of skills. When come to arguing for the solutions of the water and air pollution problems brought by manufacturing activities, students may require even higher order thinking skill –to analyze the problems, synthesize the possible solutions, evaluate each solution and make a final decision. Teacher here can act as a judge to evaluate their decision made. But whatever decision is made, students have to learn to take responsibility from such decision.

Conclusion

The activity designed indeed also targeted to enable students to change their usual learning practice, particularly on the aspects of environmental awareness and consciousness. Here, they can change from a recipient to an explorer, be a “judge”, a decision maker and even a “prophet”. As suggested by Kwan (1994) in the abstract for the seminar on Environmental Education Into the 21st Century, the goal of environmental education is to provide environmentally literate citizens with relevant knowledge, skills, insights and sensitivity to understand and appreciate the nature of the environment and the conflicts which arise because of mankind’s interaction with it. Hopefully, the activity can act as a starter to drive students to treasure and love more their environment.

Acknowledgement

The successful implementation and conduct of this fieldwork project relies heavily on the contribution of my lovely S4 geography students (2001-2002). They were actively participated in all tasks and their eagerness to contribute to this study really surprised me. My great appreciation goes to the efforts and supports given by all of them. I am grateful to the supports given by the Education Department of SAR Hong Kong Government under the School-based Curriculum Project Scheme 2001-2002.

References

1.  Arnold J. ( 1985 ), A Problem Solving Approach to Environmental Education, Environmental Education Series 15, UNESCO, Division of Science, Technical and Environmental Education.

2.  Barica M.P. ( 1995 ), Probing into Pupils’ Moral Judgement in Environmental Dilemmas: a Basis for “Teaching Values”, Environmental Education Research, Vol.1, No. 1, 1995.