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Creating "Green Schools" to support sustainable development (Sing Tao Daily)

04/05/2020
  • Students collected millipedes in the "Green Garden" on the ground floor of the school building for research at The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

     

    (Sing Tao Daily) Apart from wind and solar power generation, the Chinese Missionary Alliance's Lau Wing Sang Secondary School has also developed into a "green school", including the installation of "aquaponics", the "Tian Lin Garden" artificial garden, the "Charming Corner" for keeping small animals, and the implementation of the Environmental Protection Ambassadors and Cultivation Groups Scheme. Ms Lai Suk-yee, a teacher in the Environmental and Health Education Section, said that the school encourages students who are interested in environmental education to participate in environmental activities inside and outside the school, hoping that they will learn to appreciate and cherish nature and develop a sense of responsibility in support of sustainable development.

     

      Surrounded by residential buildings, CNEC Lau Wing Sang Secondary School is a green oasis in a concrete jungle. With a grant of $320,000 from the Environment and Conservation Fund (ECF) in 2008, apart from renewable energy facilities such as wind turbines and solar panels, the school has also set up the "Tianlin Garden" on the rooftop of the school building, where a variety of plants are planted and all-weather synthetic turf is paved, to provide teachers and students with a pleasant environment; there is also an eco-lake, an orchard, and the "Green Garden" on the ground floor of the school building, and a team of 30 students is in charge of organic farming. A team of 30 students is responsible for organic farming, using food waste to grow lettuce, tomatoes, radishes and other crops, which are distributed to students after harvest and used as ingredients for home economics lessons.

     

      Mrs Lai pointed out that every year the school recruits about 40 Secondary 2 to 5 students as environmental ambassadors to take turns to be responsible for the chinchillas and red-legged elephant tortoises that have been kept in the "Charming Corner" for more than 10 years, so as to cultivate students' love and sense of responsibility. In recent years, the school has also participated in the research project of The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) on millipedes, and she pointed out that there are not many related academic researches at present, and that the school will hand over the millipedes it collects to the CUHK for testing of DNA, so as to promote scientific research. She pointed out that there was not much academic research on millipedes at the moment.