Convocation Newsletter, Spring 2019

14 Behaviour in Children Children with a connection to nature had less distress, less hyperactivity, improved pro-social behaviour, and fewer behavioural and emotional difficulties, according to a recent study. Children who took greater responsibility towards nature also had fewer difficulties with peers. For the study, Dr Tanja Sobko from the HKU School of Biological Sciences and Professor Gavin Brown of the University of Auckland developed a questionnaire for parents to measure “connectedness to nature” in very young children. Almost 500 families with children aged 2 to 5 participated in the study. Dr Sobko’s research-based programme Play&Grow is the first in Hong Kong to promote healthy eating and active playtime with preschool children by connecting them to nature. Launched 2016, it has so far included almost 1,000 Hong Kong families. The new scale has attracted international attention and is being adopted by universities worldwide including Western Australia and Deakin Universities. In addition, the HKU-developed Play&Grow programme is also on track to be conducted in Australia. Support for Transgender People Only a minority of Hong Kong people (20%) said they did not accept transgender people, while a majority (80%) said they were either very accepting, moderately accepting, or a little accepting of transgender people, according to a survey published by the Centre for Comparative and Public Law (CCPL). In addition, 67% of people agreed that Hong Kong should have a law that protects transgender people from discrimination. The research was led by Kelley Loper, Director of the CCPL, plus collaborators from the University of North Carolina School of Law, RTI International, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The team commissioned HKU’s Social Sciences Research Centre (SSRC) to conduct the survey. “Our study reveals a gap between existing policy and public opinion,” said Loper. “Hong Kong lacks gender recognition legislation allowing transgender people to modify identity documents to reflect their gender identity. Hong Kong also has not introduced legislation to protect people from gender identity discrimination in the private sector.” SPRING 2019