Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus (SCUBA) diving is always regarded as a risky activity to be conducted as an extra-curricular activity in the schools of Hong Kong. However, it provides a golden opportunity for students to experience the marine nature and serves as an excellent pedagogical tool of field based learning on the environmental education. The presentation will report a case study of an international school in Hong Kong on how they utilize SCUBA diving as a tool to enhance their students' knowledge about ocean and to foster the pro-environmental attitude. The teachers of the school have developed a tailor-made curriculum using problem-based approach, articulating with the discussion of current local environmental issues on marine conservation. The students have been forming a team to join the annual global citizen-scientist programme, Reef Check, to contribute their effort in revealing the health of coral community system in Hong Kong. A mixed research method, which includes semi-structured interviews of teachers, current students and alumni, and the self-administered questionnaire for them, was adopted in the study to evaluate the ocean literacy and pro-environmental attitude of the students and the effectiveness of the programme. The difficulties faced by both the teachers and the students throughout the implementation period of the programme will be reported. The opportunity and the challenge to run such a programme in the local school will be discussed, which would provide significant insights to other local schools conducting similar field-based learning and teaching activities.

Recent educational research reveals that case studies can be applied in STEM education as a pedagogically powerful method for teaching scientific concepts and contents as well as science process skills. However, there exists very little research or literature on the instructional use of case study in STEM education in Hong Kong. Hence, a team of science educators and scientists initiated a collaborative project to investigate how feasible case study can be incorporated in STEM education. Over a period of seven months, we developed case teaching materials (including case story line with authentic data, worksheets for field trip and laboratory experiments, online/remote-controlled experiments, aerial movies filmed by drones and virtual reality videos etc.) for topics purposefully selected from (i) Hong Kong Wetland Park, (ii) two large sewage treatment plants/projects of the Drainage Services Department, and (iii) landfill gas used by the Town Gas company. This teaching approach was implemented in three different courses in our education university. A set of instrument for mixed research method was specifically developed or modified for collecting data on the learning effectiveness and feedback from a total of 115 students enrolled in the aforementioned three courses. Essential features of the case teaching materials and preliminary findings of the evaluation will be presented. The discussion on the difficulties encountered in the development and implementation stages as well as the direction for the future research and development work will be highlighted.