Workshops

The workshops at Reconnect have been developed to allow participants to receive hands-on knowledge and experiences in working with environmental systems. Reconnect offers workshops for schools, corporates and institutions.

Ecosystem Program

Aquaponic workshop

Aquaponic is a food production system that combines hydroponics and aquaculture by allowing the chemical nutrients needed for hydroponic plant (vegetable) growth to be replaced with fish waste. The size of the aquaponic can range from a desktop size to a cupboard size. It can be small enough to sit on a desk or table for the purpose of creating an in-house diverse learning setting in a space limited classroom environment. With a small footprint, aquaponic is an excellent tool to demonstrate the concept of a balance ecosystem by demonstrating the return of the aquaculture waste for the vegetable growth.

This program is designed to improve science education by integrating hands-on learning with aquatic and hydroponic science. This is an ideal method to teach science in a fun and innovative way.
This family friendly workshop allows participants to DIY their own unique aquaponic system for learning the complex symbiotic interaction of various components in our ecosystem. Through learning to balance the harmonious relationship between the aquatic organisms and the plants, the users will gain insight to the importance of environmental protection.

The aquaponic system incorporates one integrated system that grows fish and plants together. The fish waste provides organic food source for the growing plants and the plants provide a natural filter for the water the fish live in. Aquaponics takes advantage of the benefits of fish waste and removes the drawbacks of fish waste which is a good example of sustainable living.

Food waste is a prevalent issue in Hong Kong with an astonishing figure of 3000 tonnes of food waste being disposed daily at the near-capacity landfills. In order to tackle this problem from its root, Reconnect develops students’ understanding of food loss minimisation at a pre-consumer level, by encouraging them to develop a habit of taking food inventory and food donation.
To do so, we ran a behavioural challenge program taking a course of 21 day at our partnership schools which is designed to instill good environmental habits pertaining to taking inventory of food items at home . A fun online game was developed for the students to donate food online to save the animal characters in the game. The online program scored the performances of the students as a measure of their effort. Concurrently, the students who signed the charter to donate food items online were encouraged to commit to their chartered statement. Over 450 primary students joined the program and as a result of this behavioural changing program, 56 students donated non-perishable items such as can food/packaged food. The collected non-perishable food items were sent to charitable organisations such as Tuen Mun District Women’s Association. A ceremony was held to reward the students who performed well in the online game and also shared their surplus resources. Great success was ascertained through this program as the program provided a platform for the students to donate food items which otherwise would have been sent to the landfill.

Set 1 HKD250
Size: 11.5 x 11 x 14.8 cm (WxDxH) with
High Transparency Clear Plastic
Set 2 HKD450
Size: 19 x 21 x 10 cm (WxDxH)
with glass
Set 3 HKD550
Size: 18.5 x 18.5 x 24 cm (WxDxH)
with High Transparency Clear Plastic and Filter

Biomimicry workshop

Biomimicry is an approach that seeks sustainable solutions to human problems by modelling on nature’s best ideas. Humans have created massive sustainability problems which could have been avoided through better design inspired by nature’s long-term tested solution found in animals, plants and microbes. Students are challenged to take inspiration from nature to develop new perspectives on design and better ways of creating innovation.

Reconnect’s biomimicry workshop brings to students in the work
• Animal – offering a chance for students to interact with our animals. Finding inspiration from nature through encountering our animals in the workshop.
• Learn how animals use their amazing skills such as ultrasound, infrared and temperature sensors to interact with the environment.
• Learn to use smart sensors to mimic animals’ inherent sensors
• Be inspired and learn how to build your own smart sensors.

Seed ball workshop

Paper waste accounts for 21.2% (1358 tpd) of municipal solid waste in Hong Kong1. In particular, tissue paper and paper bag accounts for the majority of the paper waste. To enhance the understanding how paper waste can be reused in our daily lives, Reconnect offers this Seed Ball workshop using recycled papers to make seed ball.

Farmers have traditionally used mud mixed with seed to make seed ball to help disperse seed for germination. To add an environmental flavor, paper waste is shredded and molded into a seed ball. Students can experience how this type of waste can be reused to become a product which we can use to grow plants. Students can also learn to identify various types of plant seeds and the process of plant germination. 1Environmental Protection Department (2016) Monitoring of solid waste in Hong Kong – Waste Statistic for 2016, Hong Kong SAR Government.

The concept of fair-trade is widely publicized but few can fully appreciate the concept of trade behind without being involved in the process. As such, to fully appreciate the concept and the intra-generation equity principle embedded within, the students will learn by participating in a mock fair-trade game. The game takes form of a role playing game depicting the chain of effect that each role signifies. This exercise will enable the students to experience the difficulties and needs in exercising fair-trade by first hand making it an innovative approach for understanding.

The aim of the game is for players to understand some of the pressures facing poor farmers by trading under a non fair-trade system (no guarantee price due to fluctuation in world market price, unregulated high interest rate loan, once-off trading relationship between producers and buyers). The students will naturally learn the concept of fair trade and how it is still possible to be poor even if the farmers work very hard. There will be five groups representing different roles presented in the following table.Fair-trade game: roles and responsibilities
Role Responsibilities
Game leader

Teachers will guide the students through the process of making decisions (i.e. source supplier selection, e-platform trading) and support their moral and character development in parallel.

Farming families

A group of student is designated as local mushroom farmers that maintain livelihood through selling a produce (e.g. mushrooms).

Money Lenders
Students play the role as the bank to lend money at high interest rate to the farming families and are designated to oversee the “currency” in the game.

At the beginning of the game, each Farming Family will be given resources to grow a produce (e.g. mushroom – a suitable produce will replace mushroom depending on weather) but the amount may vary between families to reflect difference in resource distribution. During the game, there is a trading session each week in which the Cost-of-living Collectors will collect varying amount of money from the Farming Families for schools fees and/or other living fee. The Farming Families will sell the mushroom they grow to the Market Trader to earn sufficient money to pay for the bills. If the Farming Families do not make sufficient money, the Money Lender will lend money to them a high interest rate. The Game Leader will introduce different market fluctuation scenarios to the Farming Families to adjust the difficulty of the game on a weekly basis. The transaction will be recorded virtually on a web-based system in the form of an e-trading platform. Players will engage with the e-trading platform frequently, as a means of record keeping and a progression check.

Cost-of-living Collectors

Students are designated to represent vendors of food, clothing, electricity etc. who sells goods and services to the farming families.
Market Traders Students are designated for buying the organic produce from the Farmer Families and exchanging goods to other students.

An Energy Saving Tongue Twister competition with each line to be revealed over 12 days. This can be an ideal campaign to raise awareness during the festive season such as Christmas which coincides with the Twelve Night theme. Students can also be involved in creating their own slogan to win this competition!

Example: “Whether the weather be cold or whether the weather be hot; we’ll weather the weather whatever the weather. Whether we like it or not.”.

Each year during Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, many types of waste are generated. In particular, waste generated electrical lantern is on the rise due to the popularity of the product. To reduce electrical waste generated from lanterns, this workshop demonstrates how recyclable material can be reused with a LED lighting system coupled with a solar panel. Students can design and create their own solar lantern using recycled materials collected. Through this workshop, students can experience first-hand how solar power can be applied in their daily lives and the extent of the problem associated with lantern waste in Hong Kong. Students are encouraged to use their DIY lantern during the mid-autumn festival.

Farmers have traditionally used mud mixed with seed to make seed ball to help disperse seed for germination. To add an environmental flavor, paper waste is shredded and molded into a seed ball. Students can experience how this type of waste can be reused to become a product which we can use to grow plants. Students can also learn to identify various types of plant seeds and the process of plant germination. 1Environmental Protection Department (2016) Monitoring of solid waste in Hong Kong – Waste Statistic for 2016, Hong Kong SAR Government.

Reconnect’s biomimicry workshop brings to students in the work
• Animal – offering a chance for students to interact with our animals. Finding inspiration from nature through encountering our animals in the workshop.
• Learn how animals use their amazing skills such as ultrasound, infrared and temperature sensors to interact with the environment.
• Learn to use smart sensors to mimic animals’ inherent sensors
• Be inspired and learn how to build your own smart sensors.

This program allows students to be exposed to the latest green technologies through the self-powered energy-efficient wireless sensor network, which monitored the environmental factors in relation to the soil moisture level, air humidity, sunlight intensity, carbon dioxide levels and temperature. The data was then recorded in a graph where students were taught how to further analyze the data. By acquiring real-time environment information from the network, the students were provided a platform to explore the science behind farming. The system gave the student the ability to monitor the plant growth closely and to alert the students to control irrigation and application of nutrients to plants as needed.

Food waste at schools is a challenging issue. Many school students opted to leave their purchased lunch unconsumed and the schools are posed with the challenge to deal with these food waste. This program demonstrates how food waste can be reused as a resourceful material as part of organic farming.

The students were requested to bring in fruit skins and waste bread from home. In conjunction, the food waste from unconsumed lunch was also used as compost. We installed:
• 3 small-scale food composting machine (5 kg) which can generate compost within half a day;
• 3 food composting box which takes 3 months to generate mature compost.
• The compost generated from the food composting machines were applied to the garden to grow vegetable. Freshly grown salad from the school garden was served to the students as afternoon tea. The students got to enjoy the fruit of their harvest and to experience the complete “loop” cycle of recycling food waste.

From the success observed in the previous 21 day challenge online game, we further developed another online game which encouraged students to finish all of their food for each meal. The concept of the game is for students to record daily the amount of food that they have eaten in their meals and further observe the amount of food waste that they create if they do not finish their food. The aim of this game is to change the wasteful behaviour of students and tackle excessive food waste from its roots.

In the game, students will be given a plate of food and when they click on the food that they have eaten, it will disappear leaving the leftover on the plate. Students are expected to record the food that they have not finished every day in order to observe the food waste that they have accumulated throughout the period of time that they have been playing. Through this game, we hope to promote a behavioural change in which students will develop a habit of finishing their food.

To do so, we ran a behavioural challenge program taking a course of 21 day at our partnership schools which is designed to instill good environmental habits pertaining to taking inventory of food items at home . A fun online game was developed for the students to donate food online to save the animal characters in the game. The online program scored the performances of the students as a measure of their effort. Concurrently, the students who signed the charter to donate food items online were encouraged to commit to their chartered statement. Over 450 primary students joined the program and as a result of this behavioural changing program, 56 students donated non-perishable items such as can food/packaged food. The collected non-perishable food items were sent to charitable organisations such as Tuen Mun District Women’s Association. A ceremony was held to reward the students who performed well in the online game and also shared their surplus resources. Great success was ascertained through this program as the program provided a platform for the students to donate food items which otherwise would have been sent to the landfill.

HK Registered Charity IR No 香港註冊慈善團體編號: 91/14322

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Tailor-made Corporate Program

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Public Education

We Care, We Share, We Reconnect

Workshops

Ecosystem Program

Aquaponic workshop

Biomimicry workshop

Seed ball workshop

Aquaponic workshop

Biomimicry workshop

Seed ball workshop