Drop In The Ocean

Drop In The Ocean

Crusade for Water Conservation

When Ms. Charlotte Nielsen arrived in Hong Kong five years ago, starting her stint as a teacher at Canadian International School in Hong Kong (CDNIS), she knew that she wanted to remain involved with her environmental advocacy, an industry she had worked in prior to becoming a teacher. After a fellow teacher introduced her to Ocean Recovery Alliance, an NGO dedicated to improving the ocean’s environment, she dove headfirst into spending her free time creating an educational programme around the subject of water resources.

“The curriculum is targeted at middle school classrooms,” explains Ms. Nielsen. “ I spent a large chunk of my free time for over a year working on a funding proposal for the programme, which we eventually received from The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust. The curriculum is now being taught in several international schools In Hong Kong, and subject to funding, some schools in India too. The aim is to create an interest in kids for water issues, and to put Hong Kong’s water resources in the global context, so that students are spurred into cultivating good water stewardship practices.”

An exhibition to showcase the curriculum in the Maritime Museum was also part of the project. Designed to provide a water education experience to the general public, the bilingual exhibit lets museum goers follow the journey of a single water droplet in order to better understand the water resource issues affecting Hong Kong. The exhibit ran for three months in the museum earlier this year.

Ms. Nielsen faced several challenges putting the exhibition together: “This whole exercise was a good example of how far you can take a good idea without having much experience in it. When we interviewed our first designer, they told us what we wanted couldn’t be done. Luckily, the next designers we came into contact with, One Bite, liked our idea and committed to making it happen. We had to work within a lot of safety regulations. For example, we weren’t allowed to have any running liquids in the exhibit, which was ironic for a maritime museum. Through this process, I learned not to be intimidated by things you haven’t done before. Even though our team didn’t have any experience putting on an exhibit, we bounced ideas off each other and we were happy with the outcome.”

Having studied marine and estuarial science at university, Ms. Nielsen was always interested in animals and nature growing up. Even though she spent her formative years in a city setting in Brooklyn, she aspired to become a vet. “Growing up in a city, I didn’t know much about ecosystems, like where the water goes when we flush the toilet,” she explains. “After university, I ran my own environmental consultancy firm in America for 10 years, as well as working on projects overseas. However, I realized that one good way to make a difference is by educating others, which led me to change career paths and become an international school teacher.”

One of the projects which Ms. Nielsen is particularly proud of is one she worked on in Mafraq, Jordan. When she was there with USAID, she worked on a waste water treatment plan, aiming to turn waste water into viable agricultural use. Better use of waste warder was a challenge in Jordan, which had acute water shortage issues, and also relied heavily on agriculture for its economy. “We faced many problems during this project, as it wasn’t easy getting the required information in a foreign country,” says Ms. Nielsen. “Even though our recommendations were not put in place for a few years, I’m glad we were able to make an impact, because local people had been getting sick from the waste water seeping into the water system.”

When pondering the water resource demands facing the world today, Ms. Nielsen sees a number of pressing issues. “Our overuse of freshwater resources is placing a strain on surface water, which powers agriculture and industry. We also have a big problem with water sources getting contaminated. The issue of plastic polluting the ocean is horrifying. This is something that is particularly personal for me, as my youngest son, who has just graduated from CDNIS, loves to surf. I get frequent updates on the quality of the water in Big Wave Bay when he’s out on the water.”

The solutions to these problems are not immediately apparent though, and Ms. Nielsen doesn’t believe that change will come through people changing their habits. After all, most people don’t realise that our addiction to consumption has an impact on water resources, as the production of goods requires vast amounts of water. The effect of climate change will lead to droughts as well, forcing humans to rethink their relationships with water resources.

When asked whether she is optimistic that these issues can be resolved, Ms. Nielsen responds with a wry smile. “Things will get bad before they get better,” she profers, “I do believe that this next period of civilisation that we’re entering into will be different. The rise in global temperatures due to our insatiable consumerism has had such a strong impact on our world in such a short period of time.”

Yet as she surveys her surroundings at CDNIS, there are other things which offer her more hope. “I think that the school is doing a good job at motivating kids to make a difference. It’s important to be outward looking, as the problems of the world are outside our four walls, and I think that CDNIS is on the right track here. Being able to have kids outside engaging with hands on learning, this is incredibly important. There are already a core group of students who are passionate about environmental issues, but I hope that we can do a better job at incentivising those who aren’t to care about the world around them. Innovation is all about looking at problems from different angles, and it’s not necessarily all technology-related. My goal is to educate our students to be flexible, hopeful, and to be able to work with others with different views.”

“Growing up in a city, I didn’t know much about ecosystems, like where the water goes when we flush the toilet. After university, I ran my own environmental consultancy firm in America for 10 years, as well as working on projects overseas. However, I realized that one good way to make a difference is by educating others, which led me to change career paths and become an international school teacher.”

Charlotte Nielsen, Upper School teacher, Student Advisor and Environmentalist