Teaching environmental issues in school geography: The Hong Kong experience

This paper reports on the teaching of environmental issues in a system where classroom practice is strongly affected by public examination pressure. A questionnaire survey was administered to all the geography teachers who taught at the senior secondary, pre‐matriculation level in Hong Kong (Grade 11) to obtain information on their background, pattern of objectives, methods, use of resources and their justifications for teaching decisions. Follow‐up interviews were carried out with a stratified sample of those who replied to the survey. Results show that although variations do exist, teachers mainly teach in a didactic style with attention given to low‐order understanding at the expense of values and behavioural objectives. In the view of many teacher‐educators, this pattern is unlikely to be useful for the balanced development of environmental consciousness. However, as every pattern of teaching has its own merits and limitations, further research is called for so that an empirically‐based set of principles can be generated to promote the development of environmentally literacy and responsibility amongst students in schools.