I’m here today to talk about a better
approach to environmental education and
in order to do this we really need to
think about the traditional way that
most people will get their environmental
education and let’s start with a
question which of these is the leading
cause of the greenhouse gas effect
well actually it’s going to be water
vapor this is a naturally occurring
phenomenon now this is something that
would be incorporated into a larger
lesson which would talk about global
warming but still this is going to be
how a lot of lessons are taught just
talking about global warming and I want
to ask you if you get that lesson how do
you feel do you feel empowered do you
feel like you can make a difference
probably not and I think that’s the big
problem when it comes to environmental
education it’s depressing and often it
involves what we have to give up maybe
losing a convenience in order to make
the environment better so now let’s look
at something different which packaging
is best for the environment now this is
a question that anybody might face if
they go to a 7-eleven they’re just
trying to get a drink for these let’s
assume that they’re all the exact same
drink the price is the same the only
thing that’s different is the packaging
which one will you get well all of these
can be recycled but aluminum is the only
one around the world that is routinely
recycled at very high rates and that’s
because it’s the only one that can be
recycled profitably now this is a very
simple little question that I’ve got
here but as an English teacher I can
take this in too many directions and I
can use this for a beginner class a
middle level class in advanced class you
know not just English you can use this
with other subjects and when you take
the study of the environment and then
you also mix in other things like
society business technology then we
enter in something new called
education for sustainable development
now if I was giving this to a class
there might be several good positive
learning outcomes that I would aim for
you know take for example maybe a
student would learn that most of the
time glass is not recycled but a way
that they could find out that really
easy that it is recycled is
they’re deposit if there’s a deposit so
you have to return the bottle they’re
going to refill it and of course that’s
more environmentally friendly but I
believe in Hong Kong there is only one
beverage and that’s a soy milk they sell
at 7-eleven the only one so that’s one
thing maybe the students will learn or
maybe they’ll develop a different
behavior like not buying as much bottled
water or even better what if their
attitude changes so they start talking
to their family and friends about this
or even better what do we get them
excited about a potential career in
which they’d feel so they would feel
fulfilled and something that they could
really make a difference with so when we
talk about education for sustainable
development you know researchers have a
challenge how to measure it
so knowledge isn’t so great because in
this field it’s so complex involving
many different parts it’s rapidly
changing for example subsidies for
electric cars here today gone tomorrow
also just because you know about
something doesn’t necessarily mean that
you’re going to make a difference with
your behavior I bet a lot of people in
the world know of global warming but
unfortunately it’s getting worse it
worse and that brings us to behaviors
theory it could work but problem about
behaviors is that they’re self reporting
so you’re probably going to get a little
bias you know if I ask you and your
recycles I bet everybody because you
know that’s the answer you’re supposed
to give so the the data will be biased
there also one behavior in two different
places can mean two different things
take for example that you take public
transit in the u.s. that’s a pretty good
sign that you care about the environment
but what if you take public transit in
Hong Kong that’s normal that doesn’t
mean that you necessarily care about the
environment and this is why we usually
will measure attitudes when we’re trying
to figure out how well some education
for sustainable development course is
working since they’re very deep-seated
and there’s a very strong correlation
with attitudes and behaviors so when I
was in Hong Kong University I was lucky
enough to work with this awesome team
and we had a project trying to measure
invite
attitudes of secondary students here in
Hong Kong and we went to several
secondary schools to measure the goal
was to compare them with students abroad
and also try to develop a way that we
could do before and after to measure the
efficacy of a program so we chose the
new ecological paradigm which is the
most used measure of analyzing
environmental attitudes in the world
originally developed in the u.s. also
heavily used in Europe the N ap scale is
going to have 15 questions on a
five-point Likert scale now what that
means is that you’re going to answer
anywhere between strongly disagree
strongly agree after you answer the 15
questions it’s going to give you a score
which will put you on a scale on one end
you care deeply about the environment
and on the other end you care deeply
about societal growth business and the
questions are going to be rotated as far
as being positively and negatively
awarded so if you strongly disagree with
the odd questions but strongly disagree
with the even questions you’d score five
which means that you’re very
ecologically minded but conversely if
you strongly disagree with the odds
strongly agree with the evens then that
means you’re really about humanity first
and if you score three well that means
that you’re neutral so as I said we gave
this to many schools and sadly we found
out it’s probably not suitable for Hong
Kong now we disagree about this inside
our group but when I’m looking at the
data I actually believe that is because
cultures disagree differently and
there’s a lot of research that supports
this in North America people as a whole
are far more likely to be open saying I
strongly disagree with that but in Asia
more often research shows that if you
disagree you might just put neutral yeah
so now you might be wondering are there
any alternatives and again this is when
I get in to disappoint you and say not
really but that brings us back to our
original question
how to measure but then start thinking a
little bit more do we have to measure
and what’s education for is it for
learning or for evaluation and if we
open up our minds that we can teach
something that we don’t have to grade
and evaluate then all the sudden there’s
a whole new wealth of options that we
can use as teachers so as far as
teaching methods with curricula of
course we’ve got standalone classes in
Hong Kong you might have the IB class a
program that would be offered and there
is a class called environmental
societies and systems and this class
does touch into sustainability but of
the twenty nine I be secondary schools
in Hong Kong only fourteen even offer
this as an elective now there are a
couple other courses that briefly
discuss sustainability but not very much
and then in the local curricula the
Liberal Studies course they actually do
have one module of six which does cover
sustainability but in both of these
situations you’re teaching
sustainability to kids who are finishing
up their secondary time that means
they’re going to be about 17 or 18 years
old and most research shows that your
attitudes your environmental attitudes
are going to be pretty firmly in place
at a younger age if you try to do it as
they are it’s too little too late and I
think we can all agree changing formal
curricula is very challenging very
political something I don’t even want to
mess with a lot of schools choose to use
extracurricular activities maybe have a
garden at your school maybe you take
your kids to a recycling plan and that
works but actually I think there’s a
better way and that’s where the weaved
in hidden curriculum a hidden curriculum
is basically when a teacher is going to
push his or her attitudes on to his or
her students I kind of think of it as
putting your soul into a lesson and this
is how I do it actually I simply just
have a Facebook page where whenever I
read anything that’s talking about
sustainability preferably in Hong Kong
but it could be something abroad
that we might want to bring here I just
post it on my page I use the page to
share but more importantly to store
because I think any teacher who’s taught
for a while can remember a time that oh
if I only do or that one article was I’d
use it this makes it very easy in order
to have that information those stories
sometimes video is very handy and then
as an English teacher I would think
about what skills do I really want to
work on today
it could be something generic or it
could be something more specific to
English skills then I might present the
question like this now this is similar
to what we talked about before with
global warming but you notice how now
it’s a little bit more localized how do
people in Hong Kong contribute to global
warming
I might ask this to my students and they
would probably say something like well
we use energy correct and we use
transportation also correct but actually
Hong Kong’s ecological footprint is very
high per person in the world how can
that be so we might compare to other
societies like mainland China what is it
in mainland China that contributes to
their footprint and they might say
something like factories and Industry
that’s correct
well what about the US well people there
would have their own car and probably a
big house much more energy inefficient
than we are here that’s all correct so
again I’d probably ask them why guys why
do you think that we have such this big
footprint and they’re usually amazed to
find that actually the biggest reason is
meat yeah people in Hong Kong are
carnivores you guys love it and my
students are amazed to find the amount
of resources that go into it
to producing meat and this is where I
believe I change a little bit from the
traditional environmental education I’m
not trying to show stories of the Amazon
being chopped down but instead I’m
trying to think of solutions talk about
what we could actually do in Hong Kong I
don’t want to make my students feel bad
I want them to come up with some
positive solutions using English of
course and try to figure out what they
can so I might start off with a simple
question like should we ban meat they
say of course not
that’s crazy but then I ask okay what
about different stakeholders what would
be their stake why can we not do this
and we
some really interesting discussions and
then that’s where I go back to that
Facebook page that I told you about and
I find some stories that could be
pertinent to this like this one this is
a veggie burger that critics say tastes
just as good as a beef burger or an
urban farm here in Hong Kong or if we
even want to take it one more level in
urban fish farm in Hong Kong those are
true stories and we’ll talk about the
pros and cons of each try to get some
more data while we might have a
discussion we might have a listening
activity a reading activity many things
we can do and then in this situation I
might have a debate after that what Hong
Kong should do to reduce its ecological
footprint and I’ll have my class broken
up into different groups and we’ll have
an amazing debate and since I’ve been
doing this you know what I found that
actually their English improves now it’s
not just speaking it could also be
writing it could be any of the skills
but something else happened I’ve been
teaching for 10 years now and never once
have I had a student come up to me and
say hey Shawn I love this textbook
doesn’t happen but I do have students
regularly come up to me and say hey
Shawn that lesson is really cool it’s
different yeah I think I’ll remember
that actually and that’s amazing that’s
what I’m looking for
now there’s other goals and other
outcomes that I could hope for or things
that could happen sometimes students
will come up to me a little bit later
and say you know what I eat a little
less meat right now I really make a
conscious effort I try to eat a little
less mate some students will come up and
say that they talked to their parents
you know this is something that I find
fantastic but once again unfortunately
we can’t measure it now we already said
that curricular so tightly packed you
know there’s not really so much wiggle
room that we have in there which is why
I want to leave you with this we need to
look to a hidden curricula to help
educate some of the things that can’t be
measured and I truly think that if more
teachers were to use education for
sustainable development they would find
multiple advantages in multiple courses
but also they would see that is
a better way to teach about the
environment thank you [Applause]