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With support from the International Geosynthetics Society (IGS), the IGS China Chapter, and the China Technical Association for Geosynthetics, and IGS council members, the Educate the Educators (ETE) program was conducted August 18–19, 2016, in Zhangjiajie, Hunan Province, China. This program was first of its kind in China.
Prof. Chungsik Yoo, IGS vice president, delivered a speech in the opening ceremony to introduce the objectives of IGS and this ETE program. More than 70 attendees from 30 colleges and institutes in China participated. Through this event, the IGS Chinese Chapter recruited more than 30 new members.
ETE is a program developed by the IGS—a geosynthetics education program specific to supporting educators. It provides core geosynthetic content, background information, and materials for use in classrooms so that participants can include geosynthetics in their engineering curricula.
Lectures were provided by Prof. Chiwan Wayne Hsieh (National Pingtung University of Science and Technology), Prof. Chungsik Yoo (Sungkyunkwan University), Prof. Guangxin Li (Tsinghua University), Prof. Chao Xu (Tongji University), Prof. Guangqing Yang (Shijiazhuang Railway University), Boyd Ramsey (GSE Lining Technology Inc.), and Pietro Rimoldi (World Tech Engineering/Maccaferri).
The program was sponsored by Maccaferri (China), GSE Environmental, Hongxiang New Material, Hock Technology and Taian Modern Plastics, all IGS corporate members.
In addition to the information about geosynthetics, attendees also had educational discussions on geosynthetics courses for undergraduates and postgraduates. A sample book including 33 types of geosynthetics was provided to attendees for their educational usage upon returning to their institutions
Sponsor certificates were issued and Prof. Chao Xu, chair of IGS Chinese Chapter extended thanks to IGS, respected lecturers, the sponsors, and all attendees in the closing ceremony.
The CCIGS has reported promising feedback from this event, with an outlook for more activities in the future.
Boyd Ramsey, Technical Director/GSE Asia-Pacific Region