Shanghai Expo - Green Economy
The best thing about the whole learning journey is the time and space disconnection from school where I found myself being able to fully appreciate the new sights and information. With this, the focus of each day begins with an anticipation of visiting a new pavilion with the aim of acquiring new learning.
As much as it is a World Exposition with impressive pavilions from the participating countries - one can’t help but be consumed by the technologies and enormous scale of making by China. Similar to the Beijing Olympics in 2008, the sheer scale of presentation by China leaves one in awe. Massive and impressive appears in almost all that is put up by China.
In terms of applications to Teaching and Learning, I shared with my Secondary Four classes on the topic of ‘Development’, where economic progress (brought about by improvements in China’s Gross Domestic Product) helps propel enhancement in the standard of living for the people. Large scale events such as Beijing Olympics (2008) and Shanghai World Exposition (2010) serve as good catalysts to drive developments in infrastructure for example transport and communications network, water supplies and cleaning up of waste when there is a nation-wide effort within the country to make improvements to existing structures before the staging of an international event where the country presents itself to the world.
Another interesting observation is, similar to Beijing, Shanghai is a culturally-rich city with deep historical roots, I wished I had time to study how the city tries to balance the fast pace of development and change with the preservation of it’s very unique cultural heritage. It will be a challenging topic to discuss with students on the environmental, social and economic impacts of development.
I also shared with my classes the observations of locals whom we met in the World Exposition where we got reminders that China still has a very diverse population with huge disparity in the economic wealth of its people. Understandably so, after all, it’s a mammoth task to distribute wealth among 1.3 billion people.
The theme of the World Exposition is “Better City, Better Life,” which the participating countries and corporations shared environmentally-sustainable practices and technologies. In a way, the World Exposition represents an ideal city where there is zero carbon emission and proper waste management. From the solar-powered buses to the use of clean energy in most pavilions, these methods shows new possibilities in meeting the increasing demand for energy while maintaining the delicate balance of our ecosystems.
Personally, I am more intrigued by the concepts of environmentally-sustainable practices rather than the actual technologies as there can only be (positive) change in the world when its people are more accepting of practices which respects the environment. Since the majority of the visitors to the Shanghai Expositions are the locals, it will be interesting to observe the impacts it will have in the principles of cities management within China in years to come. Such learning should be shared with our students to prepare them for the (green) challenges of the world tomorrow.
Veronica Lam - Woodgrove Secondary School - Green Economy Group
