Prof. Lam Chiu Ying, Department of Geography & Resource Management

• Adjunct Professor, Department of Geography and Resource Management, CUHK
• Chairman, HKSAR Environmental Campaign Committee
• Chairman, Hong Kong Countryside Foundation
• Honorary President, Hong Kong Bird Watching Society
• Ex-Director, Hong Kong Observatory

Prof. Lam is a long-time fervent bird-watcher and after retirement, has turned into an active speaker. Starting with climate change, he promotes love of and respect for Nature as well as simple life-styles to a wide audience. Prof. Lam has been offering a general education course 'UGEB2114 Climate, Energy and Life' at CUHK since 2010. His publications include: Thoughts on Wing (in Chinese,《飛羽神思》), Birds of Hong Kong and South China (in Chinese,《香港及華南鳥類》)(co-author), Director's Blog (in Chinese,《台長網誌》)(co-author), Where for Peace in the Changing World (in Chinese,《天地變何處安心》).

I come to teach at the Chinese University with a hidden agenda. I hope to urge as many students as possible to resolve to be a good man/woman in the rest of their life. I am determined to exert my utmost to give students good education useful to their transition from adolescence to adulthood.

I see students as "intelligent machines" waiting to be switched on. I believe that they would be switched on if:

1. their curiosity is re-ignited,
2. they discover the beauty in the inter-connection among things they encounter,
3. they find out that they can acquire knowledge through their own effort,
4. they realize that what they learn in class is immediately relevant to what is happening around them everyday,
5. they realize that what they learn in class has a global dimension which is also relevant to their life.

I advocate that learning should be fun, should not be just about knowledge, but should also be about developing generic skills, attitudes and in particular righteous values.

I think that as teacher I should come close to the students, to let them know that I care about them, not just as students but also as human beings. I firmly believe in the human touch as the key to motivating the students. For example, I always say "good morning" to all students coming into the classroom even those who are late.

I consider it important that all university students should develop a world-view informed by basic science, geography and history, which carry both the senses of both time and space, in great depth and wide span. This world-view I endeavour to help students built it up themselves.

I feel that as a university teacher, I have the responsibility to help students realize that, armed with the knowledge and intelligence they acquire from university, they have the potential to do either great good or great harm to human society. I further consider that a university teacher has the responsibility of instilling in the young mind of students the determination to do good and not to do harm to people and the world.

1. let students bring up news reports of current interest, which I would then turn into a demonstration of the connection between course contents and current affairs, often involving unexpected intellectual acrobats surprising to students,
2. prompt students with questions which they could collectively answer, and reward them whenever they participate actively,
3. walk among students during the class,
4. let ample humour come into the talking I do in class,
5. as the opportunity arises, drift into side-tracks of immediate interest to students so as to hold their attention throughout the class.

1. how the human condition has evolved in relation to natural climate change and attendant ecological changes,
2. that the inclination to do good to the community is not an accident but a necessary condition for human survival so far,
3. how civilization especially urban life has led to deviations from the natural human condition and eventually to a changed physical world unfavourable to human existence.