Experiential Learning

According to the fifth report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, if people are to prevent climate change from causing global climate disasters, rapid, far-reaching actions that would effect unprecedented changes at all levels of the society are essential. Among these levels, education is one of the most important channels to make sustainable changes. Thus, a proper understanding of nature and the environment is an important foundation for establishing appropriate environmental behaviour, hence effecting changes. In order to cultivate this behaviour among the future generations, it is essential for teachers to not just understand the importance of environmental education, but also to learn about its myriad methods of application to enhance teaching effectiveness.

Collaborating with Outdoor Wildlife Learning Hong Kong (OWLHK), this course aims to nurture ecologically knowledgeable and reflective student educators who can unravel the beauty of nature and make an educational impact to the future generations. Our student educators will first learn about the theoretical knowledge of environmental education and the reflective learning cycles in experiential education in both the nature and classrooms. Then they will work in cross-disciplinary teams to put their knowledge into practice – designing and facilitating local students’ learning process in an outdoor environmental education learning programme.

Students will be assigned to work in groups to (a) experience outdoor environmental educational programme themselves, (b) design and conduct an outdoor environmental educational programme, including pre-departure training, during-outing activities, and de-briefing sessions for a group of local young students. The final programme materials may be used by the OWLHK staff for future educational programmes for other schools.