Social Sciences Seminar:"Environmental Programmes in Schools: How to avoid failure"

Abstract:

This seminar will explore how environmental programmes for schools can be made more successful. Whilst calls for education for environmentally sustainable development grow in frequency, few environmental programmes that involve the participation of schools are themselves sustainable. It can be argued that more resources are necessary, but it is also true that the design of the environmental programmes in general does not match the needs of schools and fails to generate sufficient interest among principals, teachers and students. The seminar will include a discussion of the Cap and Trade for Schools programme.

Speaker: Dr. George Woodman

George studied physics at the University of Oxford and stayed on to undertake research for which he was awarded a D.Phil in 1992. He has maintained both research and teaching interests since through active collaborations with universities in Hong Kong and Malaysia and teaching with progressive institutions, including Li Po Chun United World College of Hong Kong, which he joined in 1997. George left Li Po Chun College to become a founding director of Teng Hoi Conservation Organization, a non-profit making NGO registered in Hong Kong in 2003. He has led a number of projects and collaborations with Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Universiti Malaysia Sabah for a UN project to tackle dynamite fishing, and more recently for a Hong Kong-based project on dynamite fishing with WWF Hong Kong. He has also led a number of Teng Hoi schools' programmes and assisted the British Council with their Climate Cool schools' programme. George firmly believes in the merit of participative and practical environmental programmes that develop real interest and genuine results, such as Teng Hoi's Cap and Trade for schools programme.