Environmental Education Training Course initiated by the Chinese Union of Botanical Gardens (CUBG) is held annually in Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) since 2013. The third session of the training course (i.e. CUBG Environmental Education Training Course 2015) was held from August 3-15, with nature education experts as teachers. 28 people who are involved in environmental education from botanical gardens, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and universities participated in the training.

  The training course was composed of lectures and practicals. The lectures covered such topics as basic theories of environmental education research, investigation methods, data statistics and analysis, and literature review, etc. Prof. Chen Jin, director of XTBG and present chairman of CUBG, delivered lectures and guided the participants to studies through the whole two-week course. The course provided the participants a new insight into carrying out public education in botanical gardens.

The training course concurrently focused on the application of nature education in the practice. Rhett Butler, editor-in-chief of Mongabay.com, one of the world's most popular environmental science and conservation news sites, was invited to give lectures on nature education. He taught the participants to use new technology and media to serve environmental education.

Bran Howell, Education Development Officer of the UK Eden Project, shared his experiences of nature education with the participants.

The trainees were divided into 9 small groups to raise scientific questions, design experiment, collect data, and analyze data. They presented their results to expert panel on August 15. The presentation entitled “Dose gardening experiences have impact with environment intentions?” was evaluated as the best one among the 9 presentations. The presentations by the trainees were exciting and won praise from the training specialists, which marked the training course a success.

Prof. Chen Jin awarded certificates to prize winners of presentations and certificates of completion to all the trainees.

Prof. Chen Jin communicates with trainees

Rhett Butler, editor-in-chief of Mongabay.com, delivers lecture

Bran Howell leads nature education in the garden

Night tour in XTBG

Teachers and trainees pose a photo