A competition among schools to find wildlife in and around their campus
After the success of Hong Kong CNC we thought: 4th place is nice but what it would take to win? Of course, student power!
With funding from AFCD's Subvention for Biodiversity Education we designed Hong Kong Inter School CNC, to be held over 4 days in November 2018. Hong Kong is 70 percent green space, 40 percent protected country park, so wildlife shouldn't ever be far away so we hoped.
Some 2,000 students participated from 30 schools who logged a crazy 40,000 observations of HK wildlife in and around their schools. This beat CNC 2018's winner, San Francisco for number of observations, and almost doubled HK's count!
We are super excited that WWF-HK have taken on HKISCNC and continue to evolve it so that more schools can discover nature on their doorstep. Head on over there to join the next one!
***
We were super inspired by keen birdwatcher Mike's story of his parents-in-law walking through Victoria Park in Causeway Bay and seeing a hoopoe just standing there - wow!
With teachers and schools so busy, we sent Shaun to every participating school for one-on-one iNaturalist training and project setup, as well as any support they needed, whether a school-wide assembly or class talk (Shaun, you're amazing). We offered workshops for teachers to meet experts and get survey ideas and techniques (thanks MakerBay), including more ambitious ones like setting up a moth sheet on the school roof at night!
Inspired by OPAL (Open Air Laboratories), a UK Lottery funded citizen science programme by Imperial College London and the Natural History Museum, we spent a hectic morning delivering our fail-safe survey kits with sampling trays, magnifying glasses, bug pots and our Hong Kong adapted Guide to Running a BioBlitz to every participating school across HK, Kowloon, New Territories and even Lantau.
TTT's programme was free of charge and joined by Band 1, 2 and 3 English and Chinese primary and secondary schools and international schools including students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
Comments