Interviews with key scientists involved in research on severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), together with analysis of media reports and documentaries produced during and after the SARS epidemic, revealed many interesting aspects of nature of science (NOS) and authentic scientific inquiry. This novel insight into practice in the rapidly growing field of molecular biology was used in the development of instructional materials for use in the pre-service and in-service teacher education programme at The University of Hong Kong. The elements of NOS and scientific inquiry identified in the scientific research on SARS were explicitly emphasized in our instructional materials. The contemporary real-life context of SARS was found to be effective in promoting student-teachers' understanding of NOS and scientific inquiry, particularly in terms of: the realization of inseparable links between science and the social, cultural, and political environment; deeper understanding of how science and technology impact on each other; and a richer appreciation of the processes of authentic scientific inquiry and the humanistic character of scientists. The effectiveness is attributed to immediacy, relevance, and familiarity, making the abstract tangible, personal experience of science history, and the powerful affective impact of the interviews with scientists.
[Copyright of International Journal of Science Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09500690701528808]

In Hong Kong and Canada, indeed globally, slogans about learning to learn and teaching for 21st-century knowledge and skills are common. However, there are few examples of how teacher education courses or programs are responding to these new demands. In this paper, we propose a framework for designing teacher education premised on the theoretical perspective of knowledge building. We describe two courses, a pre-service teacher education in course Hong Kong teachers and a joint graduate course for Hong Kong and Canadian teachers. In both cases, participants engaged in knowledge-building discourse mediated by a computer-supported learning environment. We present the design and illustrate how the teachers were able to work as collaborative inquirers and knowledge creators in a knowledge-building community. Implications of knowledge building for teacher development as related to socio-cultural contexts are discussed.
[Copyright of Teaching Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10476210500527907]

This paper reports on a study conducted in Hong Kong which addresses the question of whether teaching approaches can influence the development of learning outcomes within the context of environmental education, how such outcomes are affected by different academic ability levels, and whether they vary over time. The overall hypothesis is that enquiry teaching is more effective than didactic approaches for the development of environmental understanding, irrespective of students' original academic ability and the time frame of measurement. A quasi-experimental design based on a pre-test and two post-tests and follow-up interviews administered to geography classes at matriculation level was used to collect numerical data about changes in understanding after the teaching of a people-environment topic. Students showed a moderate level of environmental understanding to begin with. Results showed that, irrespective of academic ability, those taught with an enquiry approach did better than those who were taught didactically in the short term but not in the long term. The reasons for this trend are discussed in terms of student ability and teaching conditions in schools. To increase the effectiveness of enquiry teaching, improvements in teacher education and training, curriculum revision, funding and research support and changes in examination questions are called for.
[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/10.1080/10382040108667445 ]

This study investigated differences across four countries in the amount and nature of above-average ability and average-ability pre-adolescents' everyday life, scientific, moral, spiritual and religious questions. The participants (N = 975) of this study were fifth-and sixth-grade elementary school students from different schools in Finland (N = 367), the USA (N = 164), Hong Kong (N = 169) and Bahrain (N = 275). Approximately half of the students in each country came from special programmes or schools serving above-average-ability students. The results showed that above-average-ability students from each participating country asked more scientific and moral questions than their average-ability peers. This finding was not found to be gender-related. Furthermore, in each country the average-ability students asked more everyday life questions than their gifted peers. The Christian influence in the Finnish and US data, and Muslim influence in the Bahrain data were seen in the spiritual and religious questions asked by pre-adolescents. Additionally, in all the data sets girls asked more spiritual and religious questions than boys. The results point to the need for teachers to discuss moral, religious and spiritual questions influencing pre-adolescents' futures.
[Copyright of British Journal of Religious Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01416200500141181]