16、From adventurers to educators – collaborating with local organizations to equip Generation Y students to become educators through experience and training

 

Chan Hiu Yan, Winnie

Ocean Park Hong Kong

 

Generation Y students are said to be creative, confident and adventurous. More and more Generation Y youngsters are joining us in promoting conservation messages, it is important to equip these youngsters so as to be outstanding promoters and educators. In order to take advantage of these characteristics and engage visitors, Ocean Park has collaborated with different local green groups over the past two summers of 2012 and 2013 in a narrator training program. In this collaborative effort, we have sponsored a group of outstanding new Generation Y students from local secondary schools to participate in adventure tours to the Arctic and the rainforests of Borneo, and trained them as volunteers to share their exciting experiences and promote conservation messages at our new exhibits – Polar Adventure and Rainforests. This presentation shares the concepts of this collaboration, and how we equip and engage these Generation Y volunteers, who come from different backgrounds and with different personalities, to become outstanding educators themselves that can help save the environment.