The New Senior Secondary (NSS) curriculum has been implemented in Hong Kong since September, 2009. One major objective of this initiative is to help students acquire critical thinking, information technology and life-long learning skills through the Independent Enquiry Learning (IEL) approach. Geographical Information System (GIS) and Satellite Remote Sensing (RS) can be very effective tools for multiple subjects in the NSS curriculum, particularly in Geography and Liberal Studies. However, there exists a huge technical barrier for teachers to apply the technologies in the ordinary classrooms. Hence, this project, funded by the Quality Education Fund of the Hong Kong SAR Government, aims to support the teachers of Hong Kong using GIS and satellite remote sensing in their classrooms. The implementation approach is designed totally from a practitioner's perspective; hence, the fundamental brief of this project is to develop useful resources for teachers and the products shall be; 1.) Teachers and Students - Friendly; 2.) Encourage students to practice critical thinking and spatial thinking skills; 3.) Encourage students to apply knowledge / experience acquired through the learning activities to the other field of interests; 4.) Lowering the barrier of transforming teachers’ / students’ creativity to practical GIS / Remote Sensing projects and learning activities. Products of this project include a comprehensive resources pool of GIS Data and Remote Sensing Images; a teacher-friendly GIS and satellite image processing software; teachers’ training workshops and mostly important, school-based supports. This paper will highlight the first batch of achievements and products, evaluations, successful cases of classroom implementation as well as the feedback from the frontline teachers.
[Copyright © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Yasushi Asami.]

This study attempted to investigate Hong Kong junior secondary students' conceptions of China before and after the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to China, with a view to finding out any changes in their conceptions, and if any, the factors that might have contributed to these changes. The study found that, over the years from 1997 to 2009, students still viewed China as backward in many aspects, and still held superficial, fragmentary and even contradictory and inaccurate conceptions of China, but their conceptions were getting more positive and deeper in 2009 than 12 years ago. This paper maintains that students' greater exposure to China's development in various aspects through various information sources played a prominent role in shaping their conceptions of China. The implications for learning and teaching are discussed.
[Copyright of International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10382046.2012.698083]